\ 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

GIKT    03^ 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALS WORTH. 

Received  October,  i8g4. 
iAccessionsNo.O$^l  I Q   .      Class  No.  .  ^ 


cyh.  y. 


V;  :  -^..l^^^rT?;;  -r^Wm^^^?^^'^^^ 


Tramps,  yi 


itchers  and 


I  rumpetJ 


LECTURES 


ON  THE 


VOCATION    OF   THE    PREACHER. 


ILLUSTRATED    BY    ANECDOTES,    BIOGRAPHICAL, 

HISTORICAL,    AND    ELUCIDATORY,    OF    EVERY    ORDER    OF    PULPIT 

ELOQUENCE,  FROM    THE    GREAT    PREACHERS    OF    ALL    AGES. 


BY 


EDWIN  PAXTON   HOOD, 

IDNISTER  OF  QUEEN-SQUA-KE  CUArEL,  BRIGHTON.  AUTHOR  OF  "  WORDSWORTH  I 
AN  JESTUETIC  BIOaRAPHY,"    "  DA31K  SAYINGS  ON  A  IIARr,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK: 

M.  W,  DoDD,  No.   506  Broadway, 
1869. 


In  Press  for  tjnmediate  Publication, 

UNIFORM    WITH    THIS    VOLUME, 

Lamps^  Pitchers  and  Trumpets, 

Treating  of  the  Pulpit  of  our  own  age  and  times 
and  discussing  the  Sermons  and  Characteristics  of 

Robertson,  Pusey,  Manning,  Newman, 
Spurgeon,  the  Abbe  Lacordiare, 

and  many  others. 


CHARLES    HADDON    SPURGEON, 

My  Dear  Fmend, 

It  is  very  natural  that  I  should  inscribe  this  volume 
to  you,  as  it  is  composed  of  Lectures  mostly  delivered  to 
the  Students  of  your  Pastor's  College  ;  and  you,  who  heard 
most  of  them,  expressed  yourself  most  kindly  about  them. 
I  will  not  deny  myself  this  pleasure,  although  I  have  de- 
voted a  paper,*  not  delivered  as  a  Lecture,  to  yourself  in 
the  volume.  I  will  only  say  these  Lectures  do  not  aim  to 
be  a  Course  of  Lectures  on  Homiletics,  I  may  possibly  at- 
tempt this  more  ambitious  task  some  day.  Please  to  take 
this  volume  as  an  affectionate  and  reverent  acknowledg- 
ment of  that  extraordinary  work  you  have  been  called 
upon  to  perform.  With  earnest  desires  for  your  long- 
continued  life  and  usefulness, 

I  am,  my  Dear  Friend, 

Heartily  yours, 

EDWIN  PAXTON  HOOD. 

*  Will  be  found  in  Lamps,  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets,  Second  Series. 


Krjpv^ov  rhv  Xoyov, 

**  Jfijeach  iho  ^0^4/^ — Tim.  iv.  2. 

It  were  to  be  wished  the  flaws  were  fewer 

In  the  earthen  vessels  holding  treasure. 

Which  lies  as  safe  as  in  a  golden  ewer. 

But  the  main  thing  is — Does  it  hold  good  measure  ? 

Heaven  soon  sets  right  all  other  matter. 

Robert  Browning. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  I. 

Page 
LAMPS,  PITCHEKS,  AND  TRUMPETS  -  -  7 

LECTURE  IL 

THE  VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER  -  -  -        40 

LECTURE  III. 

LAMPS,  PITCHERS,  AND  TRUMPETS  IN  THE  JEWISH  CHURCH     -        75 

pulpit  |btonoig[rap]^s.— I.    the  apostolic  age:  paul  -      91 

LECTURE  IV. 
lamps,  pitchers,  and  trumpets  in  the  early  church      -    103 
Pulpit  ;|Eonoig[ra|)j[)j5. — il    the  early  church — chrysostom-    113 

LECTURE  V. 

medieval  and  post-medieval  preachers  -              -    138 

^ulpft   ifEoTtojjrapj^jB. — iii.    st.  Bernard:    the  medieval 

preacher              -              -              -  .              -    163 

LECTURE  VI. 

THE  GREAT  PREACHERS  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  AND  EIGHT- 
EENTH CENTURIES         -        -        -        .   196 

^^ulpit  iHlonofirap^jEf. — iv.    puritan  adams  -  -    220 


VI 


Contents. 


LECTURE  VII. 

WIT,  HUMOR,  AND  COARSENESS  IN  THE  PULPIT  -  -     249 

LECTURE  VIII. 

THE  USE  AND  ABUSE  OF  IMAGINATION  AND  ILLUSTRATION        -     295 

pulpit  l^lonoijrap^js;.— V.    Christmas  evans  -  -    339 

LECTURE  IX. 

ON  THE  FORMATION  OF  STYLE  FOR  PULPIT  COMPOSITION,  ETC.       375 


>. 


o:^- 


Lamps,   Pitchers,  and  Trumpets. 

HAVE  taken  a  text  from  the  wonderful  stoiy  of 
that  great  ancient  judge  and  warrior,  Gideon. 
Do  you  not  remember,  when  Gideon  divided 
his  three  hundred  men  into  three  companies, 
he  put  a  trumpet  in  every  man's  right  hand  and  a  pitcher 
in  the  other,  and  a  lamp  within  the  pitcher  ? 

And  he  said  unto  them,  Look  on  me,  and  do  likewise :  and, 
behold,  when  I  come  to  the  outside  of  the  camp,  it  shall  be  that, 
as  I  do,  so  shall  ye  do.  Whe7i  I  blow  with  a  trumpet,  blow  yc 
with  your  trumpets  and  exclaim.  The  Sword  of  the  Lord  and  of 
Gideon.  So  Gideon,  and  the  hundred  men  that  were  with  him, 
came  unto  the  outside  of  the  camp  in  the  beginning  of  the  mid- 
dle watch  ;  and  they  had  but  newly  set  the  watch  :  and  they 
blew  the  trumpets,  and  brake  the  pitchers  that  were  in  their 
hands.  And  the  three  companies  blew  the  trumpets,  and  brake 
the  pitchers,  and  held  the  lamps  in  their  left  hands,  and  the 
trumpets  in  their  right  hands  to  blow  withal :  and  they  cried. 
The  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon.  And  they  stood  every 
man  in  his  place  round  about  the  camp :  and  all  the  host  ran, 
and  cried,  and  fled.  And  the  three  hundred  blew  the  trumpets, 
and  the  Lokd  set  every  man's  sword  against  his  fellow,  even 
throughout  all  the  host. 

The  history  seems  to  me  to  be  a  parable  of  the  "  foolish- 
ness of  preaching  ;"  an  illustration  of  the  genius  and  the 
success  of  the  pulpit — ^its  method  and  its  power.     There- 

(7) 


8  Lamps^  Pitchers^  and  Trmrvpets. 

fore,  said  the  Apostle,  "  We  have  this  treasure  in  earthen 
vessels,  that  the  excellency  of  the  power  may  be  of  God, 
and  not  of  us."  I  have  given  to  this  lecture  this  title,  be- 
cause words  are  lamps,  are  pitchers,  and  are  trumpets. 
Preaching  to  the  intellect — to  the  intelHgence — is  as  a 
lamp — it  sheds  light  over  truths,  over  processes  of  argu- 
ment, over  means  of  conviction  ;  preaching  to  the  con- 
science is  as  a  trumpet — it  calls  up  the  soul  from  slumber, 
it  makes  it  restless  and  unquiet ;  preaching  to  the  ex- 
perience is  as  a  pitcher — it  bears  refreshment,  it  cools 
and  it  calms  the  fever  of  the  spirit,  and  it  consoles  and 
comforts  the  heart.  Ordinarily,  the  preacher  should  com- 
bine all  these  quahties  ;  but  there  are  those  whose  faculties 
express  themselves  in  one  or  the  other  of  them  ;  and  there- 
fore the  image  justifies  a  generalisation  of  the  life  of  the 
preacher  beneath  its  distinctive  sign. 

Words,  with  a  soul  behind  or  within  them,  are  the  most 
blessed  and  dehghtful  means  of  intercourse.  The  age  in 
which  we  live  beholds  a  most  singular  and  perverse  return 
to  symbols  and  symbohsm  ;  but  these  can  never  be  to  the 
mind  what  speech  is,  for  there  can  be  no  reason  without 
speech  ;  even  as  also  it  is  true  there  can  be  no  speech  with- 
out reason  ;  *  and  symbols  themselves  are  only  vague  and 
pale  conceptions  of  reasons  within  the  mind,  which  must 
be  put  into  articulate  words  to  become  thoughts,  and  even 
subjective  truths.  Language  itself  partakes  of  the  infinite 
nature  of  the  human  mind,  for  "  it  transcends  in  depth  the 
most  conscious  productions  of  it  It  is  with  language,  as 
with  all  organised  beings,  we  imagine  they  spring  into 
being  blindly,  and  yet  we  cannot  deny  the  intentional  wis- 
dom in  the  formation  of  every  one  of  them."  f 

Now,  this  being  the  case,  he  whose  profession  it  is  to  use 
language  for  holy  and  sacramental  purposes,  should  surely 

*  Max  Miiller,  Lectures  on  Language,  pp.  69-73. 
t  Schilling,  quoted  by  Muller. 


The  Artist  Faculty  in  Preaching.  g 

attempt  to  use  it  with  all  due  consideration  of  these,  its 
awful  depths  and  powers  ;  and  while  we  find,  m  our  age, 
so  large  an  apostasy  of  mind — we  might  suppose  to  be  cul- 
tured, informed,  and  even  educated — to  the  pictorial  resem- 
blances of  the  childhood  of  men,  and  societies,  and  na,tions, 
we  should  attempt  to  hail  spirits  back,  and  to  obtain  do- 
minion over  them,  by  an  earnest  dealing  with  the  rights, 
and  obligations,  and  privileges,  and  hopes  involved  in  hu- 
man speech.  We  shall  see  more  distinctly,  in  the  course 
of  the  following  remarks,  that  the  master  of  speech  in  the 
pulpit  may  be  an  artist ;  nay,  that  very  much  of  his  suc- 
cess, under  God's  influence,  wiU  depend  upon  his  being 
one.  All  preparation,  all  pulpit  method,  in  fact,  supposes 
this.  A  preacher  may  be  a  born  preacher,  and  have  a  pos- 
session of  all  the  faculties  necessary  for  his  work,  and  he 
still  will  need  the  care,  the  knowledge,  the  study,  and  the 
reverence  of  the  artist  to  give  to  him  the  human  vehicle 
through  which  he  may  speak.  Some  will  object  to  this 
statement.  Is  Tennyson  less  a  poet  because  he  is  a  subtle 
artist  also  ?  Is  the  Christian  less  a  Christian,  the  preacher 
less  a  preacher,  because,  before  he  dehvers  his  words  to  the 
thousand  people  who  may  hear  him,  he  sits  down  to  ar- 
range his  arguments — in  some  instances,  even  his  words — 
to  furnish  his  mind  with  illustrations,  to  reject  some  which 
present  themselves  as  unfit  to  the  subject,  or  unsuitable  to 
time  or  place  ?  And  all  this  belongs  to  the  exercise  of  the 
artist  faculty  ;  the  prudence  and  wisdom  which  genius,  in- 
formed by  hohness,  exercises  upon  its  own  works  ;  and, 
surely,  if  the  highest  powers  need  this  exercise,  it  savors 
only  of  the  conceit  usually  associated  with  uiferior  powers, 
to  disdain  it. 

But  my  object  in  this  lecture  is  rather  to  be  anecdotal ; 
to  present  some  illustrations  of  the  variety  of  pulpit  ear- 
nestness and  excellence,  some  which  may  furnish  examples 
of  heroism  which  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  models  of 
1* 


lO 


Lamfps^  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 


method  ;  and  some  giving  motive  from  si)irituality  of  char- 
acter, where  we  would  scarcely  permit  much  homage  or 
approbation  to  the  intellect. 

Amazing  is  the  power  of  sound  ;  it  searches  the  soul 
more  than  vision  ;  it  vibrates  and  reverberates — sound 
more  immediately  and  more  deeply  penetrates.  Nothing 
presented  to  the  eye  tingles  along  the  blood  like  things  pre- 
sented to  the  ear.  Sound  thrills  in  a  wood  at  night,  in 
loneliness,  and  darkness ;  the  fall  of  leaves,  the  stir  of 
creatures  in  the  grass,  and  a  thousand  nameless  sounds, 
stu'  the  feeling  of  mystic  awe.  Sight  is  finite  ;  the  imagina- 
tion plays  more  freely  among  sounds — the  forms  are  un- 
shaped — the  powers  are  more  abiding.  Memory — atten- 
tion— seems  to  take  a  deeper  hold  upon  the  things  pre- 
sented in  sound  than  in  sight.  And  hence,  the  preacher  is 
a  trumpet  ;  the  birth  of  the  Society  of  Friends  was  in  this 
wise  :  George  Fox  was  one  of  the  most  stirring  trumpets 
of  the  Church  ;  in  the  power  he  possessed  by  his  holy 
earnestness  to  rouse  men  he  shows  in  an  eminent  manner 
what  "  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness  "  may  be. 
And  "Whitefield  was  such  a  trumpet.  Men  heard  and 
trembled.  A  mysterious  fearfulness  shook  the  souls  of 
listeners  ;  it  must  have  been  as  when  the  prophet  stood 
on  the  mount,  and  the  Lord  passed  by  in  the  wind,  and 
the  earthquake,  and  the  fii-e,  and  broke  in  pieces  the  rocks  ; 
they  were  the  announcements  of  danger,  and  wreck,  and 
death.  Such  men,  deep  as  their  own  peace  was,  had  Httlo 
to  do  with  the  still  small  voice  ;  to  set  on  fire  the  forests 
and  to  shake  the  mountains  seemed  their  task  ;  Httle  had 
they  to  do  with  the  clear,  calm  hght  of  the  lamp,  or  the 
refreshment  of  the  pitcher.  This  was  not  altogether  so 
new  as  it  may  seem,  I  shall  have  many  instances  to  cite 
from  the  friars  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  preachers  of  other 
times  illustrating  this  ;  and  is  it  useless  ?  Has  it  been  use- 
less— this  power  of  sound — to  storm,  and  startle,  and  take 


The  Surprise  Power  in  Preacliing,        \\ 

captive  the  soul  ?  Useless,  indeed,  unless  results  are  noted, 
and  the  soul  awakened  is  met  afterwards,  and  brought 
into  the  order  and  the  health  of  the  Christian  life  ;  and, 
perhaps,  the  Church  of  Eome  and  the  Methodist  Chuixhes 
have  alone  known  how  to  use  and  make  useful  seasons  of 
great  religious  excitement. 

There  is  great  danger,  in  the  work  of  preaching,  of 
yielding  to  the  demand  for  sensation  and  astonishment  ; 
and  one  good  man,  whose  field  of  labor  has  very  natur- 
ally led  him  to  adopt  this  method,  has  T\Titten  a  book,  in 
which  what  he  calls  "  the  surprise  power,"  seems  to  be  the 
most  important  of  all  his  ways  and  means  of  pulpit  suc- 
cess.* It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Mr.  Taylor  has  been 
successful,  and  his  work,  The  Model  Preacher,'\  does  con- 
tain hints  which  may  be  read,  and  even  followed  with 
advantage  :  but  there  are  preachers  who  never  enter  the 
pulpit  without  the  determination  to  produce  a  sensation ; 
they  must  arrest  attention,  and  they  are  careless  how,  so 
long  as  the  attention  is  arrested  ;  still  the  work  of  the 
preacher  involves  more  than  the  mere  forcible  arrest  of 
the  mind  of  the  hearer  ;  it  must  be  held,  and  legitimately 
held  ;  and  it  must  be  not  only  aroused,  it  must  be  en- 
lightened, and  it  must  be  informed.  There  are  trumpets 
— they  startle  and  surprise,  indeed  ;  but  even  the  trumpet 
has  another  purpose  ;  it  marshals  into  order,  it  becomes 
motive,  beneath  its  inspiring  strains  men  fall  into  ranks 
and  march,  and  it  becomes  not  merely  a  blast — a  breath — 
its  tones  fati  into  the  harmonies  and  melodies  of  other  in- 
struments, or  we  cannot  long  endure  its  shrill  screams. 
And  if  men  could  but  believe  that  we  are  awakened  as 
surely  by  the  gleam  of  a  hght  upon  oui*  eyes,  as  by  a 

*  Seven  Years  Street  Preacliing  in  California.  By  Rev.  William 
Taylor. 

f  The  Model  Preacher  ;  a  Series  of  Letters  on  the  Best  Mode  of 
Preaching  the  Gospel.    Ibid. 


12  Lamps^  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 

storm  of  noises  in  our  ears — if  the  bright,  mild  radiance 
of  the  lamp  could  but  do  its  work,  I  would  rather  this 
than  the  loud  uproar ;  but  most  prefer  to  receive  even 
theu'  light  as  heat,  though  we  know  that  these  are  but  dif- 
ferent modes  of  the  same  natural  fact ;  and  vibration  and 
radiation  are  one — radiation  is  silent  vibration.  There  is 
a  different  speed  of  vibration  ;  in  the  lower  form  of  heat — 
the  rush  of  the  red  flame — the  radiation  is  palpable  ;  but, 
as  the  heat  vanishes,  the  red  brightens — ^passes  to  orange 
— higher  still  to  green,  to  blue,  to  violet,  to  the  azure  sky, 
to  the  deep  green  of  the  sea.  It  is  in  the  quiet  radiation 
we  pass  to  the  more  beautiful  and  essential  life  of  things. 
It  is  well  remarked,  that  it  is  because  the  sky  is  blue  that 
our  earth  is  not  a  barren,  homeless  wilderness,  where 
heat  consumes  the  day  and  cold  congeals  the  night.  This 
gives  to  us  the  atmosphere,  absorbing  and  modifying  the 
solar  rays  ;  therefore,  plants  grow  and  bloom,  and  men  in 
happiness  breathe.  All  that  radiation  is  silent  vibration  ; 
and,  if  I  were  you,  I  would  aim  rather  to  radiate  than  to 
vibrate — rather  to  enhghten  and  to  refresh,  than  to  as- 
tonish. Aim  not  to  be — what  you  see  may  be  literally 
true — a  noisy,  a  glaring  color,  but  a  chaste,  beautiful,  and 
effective  one.  I  know,  as  I  have  said,  that  often  the  most 
sonorous  and  stirring  preacher  sheds  forth  a  beautiful  il- 
lustrative gleam.  It  was  so  with  that  extraordinary  York- 
shire orator,  Wnj.L\M  Dawson.  It  has  been  well  said,  his 
eloquence,  on  any  other  thought  than  his  own,  would 
have  seemed  fantastic ;  but  he  often  made  his  illustra- 
tions resplendently  beautiful.  Thus,  one  says  of  him,  who 
heard  him  preach  from  the  text,  "  Thou  hast  crowned  me 
with  loving-kindness  and  tender  mercies,"  "his  imagina- 
tion took  fire  at  the  metaphor,  and  presented  before  him 
a  regal  coronet,  studded  with  numerous  gems,  having  a 
centre-stone  of  surpassing  magnitude,  brilliancy,  and  value  ; 
consentaneously  this  became  the  crown  of  *  loving-kind- 


William  Dawson  and  Richard  Watson,    1 3 

ness  and  tender  mercies  ;'  the  countless  brilliants  repre- 
sented the  blessings  of  Providence  and  grace  ;  and  the 
centre-stone  the  priceless  blessings  of  salvation.  To  ex- 
press this  as  he  wished  was  more  difficult  than  to  conceive 
it,  and  several  feeble  sentences  were  uttered  before  the 
crown  was  shown  to  the  people  ;  but  when,  at  length,  it 
was  exhibited  in  all  its  radiant  glory,  with  its  centre  gem 
of  pm-est  lustre,  the  deep  crimson  hue  of  which  was  caught 
up  and  reflected  in  a  thousand  lights  by  the  precious 
stones  which  clustered  around  it,  the  saints  shouted  aloud 
for  joy."*  But  Dawson  was  a  trumpet  ;  the  effects  he 
produced  when  he  spoke  were  amazing ;  men  could  not 
contain  themselves ;  feehngs  were  wrought  upon  and  ex- 
cited. He  was  a  plain  farmer,  and  had  received  only  the 
most  ordinary  education  ;  but  there  was  a  bold,  strong, 
adventurous  imagination  in  all  he  said,  which,  while  it 
enabled  his  mind  to. walk  steadily  in  the  most  difficult 
paths,  and  saved  him  usually  from  coarseness,  vulgarity, 
and  profanity,  bore  his  audiences  along  with  him  upward, 
and  compelled  them  intensely  to  realize  his  conceptions 
and  his  descriptions. 

On  the  contrary,  the  great  Kichard  Watson,  a  minister 
of  the  same  denomination,  and  incomparably  the  greatest 
man  that  denomination  has  produced,  was  a  lamp.  Kobert 
Hall  said  of  him  :  "  He  soars  into  regions  of  thought, 
where  no  genius  but  his  own  can  penetrate."  TaU,  calm, 
graceful,  timid,  yet  erect,  his  eloquence  contradicted,  it 
has  been  said  truly,  the  maxim  attributed  to  Demosthenes. 
He  had  no  action,  and  all  his  utterances  seemed  simply 
an  emanation  of  soul ;  and  vast  thought,  severe  taste,  and 
solemn  dignity  characterized  aU  his  sermons. 

Or,  reverting  to  other  times,  I  think  of  Lancelot 
Andrewes,  the  good  old  bishop,  as  a  pitcher.  His  strange 
Latin  conundrums  and  quiddities,  ever  and  anon  occurring, 
*  West,  Sketches  of  Weslcyan  Preachers. 


1 4         Lamps  J  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 

like  tlie  mystic  lozenge-shaped  qnincimcial  garden  of  Cyrus, 
cannot  prevent  my  love  and  admiration  (on  this  I  may 
remark  again)  ;  and  his  sermons  have  a  sententious  pith 
— a  fulness  of  Gospel  meaning  in  them,  which  I  am  well 
content  to  travel  through  the  conceits  peculiar  to  his  age 
to  find  and  to  feed  upon.  He  did  not  like  the  Pmdtans. 
It  is  our  happiness  that  we  can  receive  and  love  men  who 
thought  they  were  far  apart  when  hving  ;  we  make  them 
tabernacle  very  lovingly  in  the  same  house,  on  the  same 
shelf  of  the  hbrary,  in  the  same  heart,  and  memory,  and 
ex]3erience.  Andre wes  did  not  exercise  himseK  so  much 
in  thought  as  in  adoration.  A  devout  naiTOwness  charac- 
terizes all  he  writes  ;  perhaps,  we  think  sometimes,  there 
is  an  artificiality  in  the  setting,  but  the  gem  is  beautiful ; 
sometimes,  lustrous  and  brilhant.  The  school  to  which 
he  belonged,  and  belongs,  is  uitense  rather  than  ardent  ; 
the  np.rrow-minded  view  will  seldom  be  an  ardent  one.  I 
should  not  call  Herbert  ardent,  nor  Keble  ;  but  the  de- 
votion is  pure — perhaps  the  purity  of  incense  and  thuribles 
rather  than  the  smell  of  Lebanon  ;  theirs  are  comfortable 
words  ;  "  Speak  ye  comfortably  to  Jerusalem,"  wS-s  the 
commission  given  to  this  order  of  mind.  There  is  an 
order  of  ministration  which  does  httle  or  nothing  to  at- 
tract or  to  persuade.  You  must  be  within  the  church  to 
be  able  to  translate  even  a  meaning  from  the  voice  or  the 
word  ;  but  if  you  are  within,  full  of  comfort,  full  of  refresh- 
ment are  the  lich  sentences.  The  works  of  Andi'ewes  are 
a  perfect  "  aurea  senteniia''  of  this  kind.  Let  me  select  for 
you  a  few.  Thus  he  speaks  of  Jonah  in  the  whale,  hken- 
ing  it  to  the  saiut's  security  in  the  state,  and  hour,  and 
article  of  death  : 

There  he  was,  but,  look  !  no  hurt  there.  As  safe,  nay,  more 
safe  there,  than  in  the  best  ship  of  Tharsis  :  no  flaw  of  weather, 
no  foul  sea  could  trouble  him  there.  As  safe,  and  as  safely 
carried  to  land ;  the  ship  could  have  done  no  more.     So  that 


Lancelot  Andrew es.  i^ 

upon  the  matter  he  did  but  change  his  vehiculum  (carriage), 
shifted  but  from  one  vessel  to  another ;  went  on  his  way  still. 
On  he  went,  as  well — nay,  better— than  the  ship  would  have 
carried  him  ;  went  into  the  sliiiD,  the  ship  carried  him  wrong, 
out  of  his  way  clean  to  Tharsisward  ;  went  into  the  whale,  and 
the  whale  carried  him  right,  landed  him  on  the  next  shore  to 
Nineveh  whither  in  truth  he  was  bound,  and  where  his  errand 
lay.  And  all  the  while  at  ease,  as  in  a  cell  or  study,  for  there 
he  indited  a  psalm.  So  as,  in  effect,  where  he  seemed  to  be  in 
most  danger  he  was  in  the  greatest  safety.  Thus  can  God 
work ;  and  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  Jonah's  second 
day. 

So  his  sermon  on  the  kings  of  the  East — the  wise  men 
coming  to  Chi'ist.  "  Here,"  he  said,  "  are  three  stars  : 
the  star  in  the  firmanent,  the  star  of  faith  in  their  hearts, 
and  Christ  himself,  the  bright  and  morning  star."  He 
continues  in  the  same  sermon  : 

The  Queen  of  the  South,  who  was  a  figure  of  these  kings  of 
the  East,  she  came  as  great  a  journey  as  these ;  but  when  she 
came  she  found  a  king  indeed  —  King  Solomon,  in  all  his 
royalty  ;  saw  a  glorious  king  and  a  glorious  court  about  him ; 
saw  him  and  heard  him  ;  tried  him  with  many  hard  questions  ; 
received  satisfaction  of  them  all.  This  was  worth  her  coming. 
Weigh  what  she  found,  and  what  these  here ;  as  poor  and 
unlikely  a  birth  as  could  be  ever  to  prove  a  king,  or  any  great 
matter.  No  sight  to  comfort  them,  nor  a  word  for  which  they 
were  any  whit  the  wiser ;  nothing  worth  their  travel.  Weigh 
these  together,  and  great  odds  will  be  found  between  her  faith 
and  theirs.    Theirs  the  greater  far. 

Surely  this  is  very  sweet  and  dehghtful  speech.  There 
is  a  simple  pathos  in  his  words — £?  simplicity  Vv^hich  makes 
them  most  effective.     Thus  : 

Good  hope  we  now  have,  that  He  being  now  flesh,  all  flesh 

may  come  to  Him  to  present  Him  with  their  requests.     Time 

was,  when  they  fled  from  Him,  but  aH  factum  carnumjam  veniet 

omnis  caro.    For  since  He  dwelt  amongst  us,  all  may  resort 


1 6  Lamps^  Pitchers^  and  TrumiieU. 

unto  Him,  yea,  even  sinners  ;  and  of  tliem  it  is  said,  Hie  recijpit 
peccatores  et  comedit  cum  eis^ — He  receiveth  tliem  even  to  His 
table. 

Like  refreshing  springs  are  such  words,  and  men  want 
to  hear  them.  I  could  mingle  many  figures,  all  to  de- 
scribe the  same  thing,  when  I  speak  of  Andrewes  and  his 
order  of  preaching.  It  is  true  that  sometimes  the  strange 
allegories,  in  which  he  and  Herbert  were  wont  to  speak, 
are  like  a  quaint  spiritual  confection ;  but  we  soon  feel  a 
sensation  of  refreshment,  as  of  home-baked  bread,  or  of 
pure  water-spiiQgs.  These  pages  hold  comfortable  and 
solacing  words  ;  good  bread  and  home-baked,  though  in  a 
strangely-shaped  mould — ^good  water,  though  in  a  pitcher 
of  strange  device. 

And  if  this  is  not  always  "  the  one  thing  needful,"  yet 
is  it  not  the  needful  thing  for  the  minister  "  thoroughly 
furnished"?  How  well  has  Robert  Browning  expressed 
this  : 

Is  God  mocked  ?     Shall  I  dare 
To  change  His  tasks  ? 

Dispatched  to  a  river  head 
For  a  simple  draught  of  the  element 
Neglect  the  thing  for  which  He  sent, 
And  return  with  another  thing  instead  ? 
Saying,  *'  Because  the  water  found. 
Welling  up  from  under  ground, 
Is  mingled  with  the  taints  of  earth. 
While  Thou  I  know  dost  laugh  at  dearth, 
And  could'st  at  a  word  convulse 
The  world  with  a  4eap  of  its  river-pulse ; — 
Therefore,  I  turn  from  the  oozings  muddy, 
And  bring  thee  a  chalice  I  found  instead  : 
See  the  brave  veins  in  its  breccia  ruddy  I 
One  would  suppose  that  the  water  bled. 
What  matters  the  water  ?    A  hope  I  have  nursed. 
That  the  waterless  cup  will  quench  my  thirst." 


Robert  Browning  :    The  Vase,  etc.         ly 

Better  have  knelt  at  the  poorest  stream 

That  trickles  in  pain  from  the  straitest  rift. 

For  the  less  or  more  is  all  God's  gift, 

Who  blocks  up  or  breaks  wide  the  granite  seam, 

And  here,  is  there  water  or  not  to  drink  ? 

I  then  in  ignorance  and  weakness, 

Taking  God's  help,  have  attained  to  think 

My  heart  does  best  to  receive  in  meekness 

This  mode  of  worship  as  most  to  his  mind, 

Where  earthly  aids  being  left  behind, 

His  All  in  All  appears  serene. 

With  the  thinnest  human  veil  between, 

Letting  the  mystic  lamps — the  seven. 

The  many  motions  of  His  Spirit 

Pass  as  they  list  from  earth  to  heaven. 

For  the  preacher's  merit  or  demerit — 

It  were  to  be  wish'd  the  flaws  were  fewer 

In  the  earthen  vessel  holding  treasure. 

Which  lies  as  safe  in  a  golden  ewer, 

But  the  main  thing  is,  does  it  hold  good  measure  ? 

Heaven  soon  sets  right  all  other  matters."  * 

But  I  intended  in  this  lecture  rather  to  draw  attention 
to  some  of  those  more  striking  characters  and  incidents, 
which  illustrate,  w^hat  I  hope  I  may  be  forgiven  for  calling, 
the  Romance  of  the  Pulpit ;  for  it  has  its  romance,  it  has 

*  Ghnslmas  Em  and  Easter  Day,  pp.  76-77.  And  it  may  not  he 
out  of  place  to  remark,  that  these  verses,  thoroughly  in  earnest, 
would  be  read  with  profit,  it  is  to  he  hoped,  by  all  able  to  read 
them.  "  The  words  are  quick  and  powerful,"  sometimes  they  are 
"  sharper  than  a  two  edged  sword  ; "  with  nervousness  and  force 
they  sometimes  cleave  right  through  some  of  the  modern  difiiculties 
in  connection  with  modern  believing  and  preaching.  Modes  of 
thought,  and  forms  of  worship,  are  touched  by  a  pen  which  is  won- 
drously  hard-nibbed ;  a  very  strong  and  devout  mind  expresses 
apparently  its  own  convictions,  in  such  a  tone  as  to  give  new  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  views  to  the  convictions  or  no  convictions  of 
others. 


1 8  Lamps,  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets, 

its  noble  and  wonderful  men,  who,  in  all  ages,  have  been 
willing  to  use  its  power  and  its  privileges  for  highest  and 
holiest  purposes — shining  as  lamps,  sounding  as  trumpets, 
refreshing  as  streams  of  water.  The  books,  over  which 
the  records  of  their  achievements  are  spread,  are  many ; 
but  they  have  started  forth  prepared  for  witness  and  mar- 
tyrdom, in  every  stirring  age  of  the  Ohurch. 

The  time  of  the  Reformation  in  Europe  was  an  age 
when  these  trumpets  pealed  forth.  "What  a  story  is  that 
of  Alexandee  de  la  Croix  !  ^  He  had  been  a  friar,  but  he 
abandoned  Paris,  his  convent,  his  cowl,  and  his  monkish 
title.  He  reached  Geneva  under  the  name  of  Alexander  ; 
welcomed  and  instructed  by  Farel,  his  transformation  be- 
came complete  ;  Christ  had  become  to  him  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness,  and  bold  m  confessing  Him,  the  Genevan 
magistracy,  under  the  influence  of  the  priests,  condemned 
him  to  death  as  a  heretic  ;  but  the  sentence  was  commuted 
for  fear  of  the  king  of  France,  and  he  was  simply  turned 
out  of  the  city.  On  the  high  road,  beyond  the  gates,  he 
stopped  and  preached  to  the  people  who  followed  him. 
He  inspired  respect  as  deeply  as  he  commanded  homage 
by  his  eloquence.  Nobody  could  stop  him,  so  strongly  did 
his  zeal  for  truth  inspire  him  to  win  people  to  the  Lord. 
He  did  not  deceive  himself,  he  knew  what  awaited  him— 
persecution,  bonds,  imprisonment,  death  ; — no  matter,  he 
would  preach  to  his  countrymen  ;  setting  out,  therefore, 
from  Berne  he  crossed  the  frontier  of  Switzerland,  and 
entered  France.  Few  reformers  strike  us  as  being  so  ab- 
sorbed by  what  may  be  called  the  passion  of  the  Cross. 
"  Oh,  my  Saviour,"  he  exclaimed,  "  Thou  hast  given  Thy 
life  for  me,  I  desire  to  give  mine  for  Thee."    Wandering 

*  1  have  condensed  the  account  of  this  remarkable  hero  of  the 
pulpit  from  The  History  of  the  Beformation  in  Europe  in  the  Time 
of  Calvin,  Vol.  II.  The  four  volumes,  all  as  yet  published,  arc  full 
of  these  stories  of  the  martyrs  and  heroes  of  the  pulpit. 


The  Preaching^  etc,^  of  Be  la  Croix.       1 9 

along  the  banks  of  the  Bienne,  the  Aier,  the  Seille,  and 
the  Saone,  he  entered  the  cottages  of  poor  peasants,  scat- 
tering the  seeds  of  the  Gospel,  and  proclaiming  the  forgive- 
ness of  the  Gospel.  At  Lyons,  numbers  heard  him  preach  ; 
he  went  from  house  to  house ;  persecution  raged  fiercely 
in  Lyons ;  the  priests  sought  for  him  but  could  not  find 
him  ;  friends  hid  him  away ;  they  sought  for  him  in  one 
part  of  the  city,  he  was  preaching  in  an  upper  chamber  in 
another  ;  they  looked  for  him  in  some  suburb  in  the  north, 
he  was  preaching  in  the  south.  Impelled  by  a  magnanim- 
ity, which  would  be  fanaticism  if  it  were  not  holy  devo- 
tion and  consecration,  the  mysterious  evangehst  entered 
the  prison  to  console  two  who  had  been  laid  there  ;  had 
he  been  discovered,  the  gates  would  have  finally  closed 
upon  him  ;  but  he  left  the  dungeon,  and  no  man  laid 
hands  on  him.  It  was  said  he  possessed  Satanic  powers, 
and  passed  invisibly  through  the  police.  At  last,  he  was 
seized  ;  he  had  moved  long  about — a  mysterious  presence 
—gifted  with  those  mighty  powers,  eloquence  and  holiness. 
After  a  wondrously  effective  unfolding  of  the  Gospel  at 
Lyons,  principally  through  the  imprudence  of  some  fol- 
lowers it  would  seem,  he  was  taken  ;  he  was  brought  into 
Paris  loaded  with  chains,  but  the  surrounding  guards  and 
archers  in  the  course  of  the  journey  had  learned  to  treat 
him  with  respect.  The  captain  of  the  archers  was  a 
worthy  man,  and  as  he  rode  beside  Alexander,  he  ques- 
tioned him  as  to  the  cause  of  his  arrest.  It  is  an  amazing 
circumstance — the  captain  was  converted  while  they  were 
journeying  to  Paris  !  As  they  journeyed  on  from  village, 
in  that  age  of  slow  journeys,  resting  for  the  night  in  inns, 
he  used  all  his  skill  of  speech  ;  in  many  places  the  priest 
of  the  village  was  sent  for  to  dispute  with  him,  it  was  un- 
availing. "  Wonderful  things ! "  says  the  old  chronicler, 
"  he  was  more  useful  at  the  ions  and  on  the  road,  than 
.  ever  he  had  been  before."    Entering  Paris,  he  must  have 


7"Bt5  C!TVfJM 


20         La7np,%  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 

known  wliat  awaited  him — w^orse  than  death  \  the  monks 
of  his  order,  the  cruel  Dominicans,  outraged  by  his  heresy 
from  the  most  orthodox  of  orders,  were  only  too  anxious 
that  the  last  resources  of  the  torture  should  be  tried  upon 
him.  As  he  refused  to  name  accomphces,  and  would  give 
the  names  of  none  who,  like  himself,  had  separated  from 
the  Church  of  Eome,  he  was  tortured  by  the  wedges  of  the 
boot ;  his  left  leg  was  crushed.  The  judge  was  amazed  at 
his  patience  :  "  It  is  enough,"  he  said,  "  he  has  been  tor- 
tured too  much."  The  executioners  lifted  up  the  martyr 
and  carried  him  to  his  dungeon,  a  cripple ;  they  brought 
him  forth  again  shortly  after,  condenmed  to  be  burned 
alive.  It  seemed  as  though  a  flash  of  joy  lit  up  his  fea- 
tures. "Truly,"  said  the  spectators,"  he  is  more  joyful 
than  he  was  before ! "  The  priests  gathered  round  him 
to  perform  the  sacerdotal  degradation.  "  If  you  utter  a 
word,"  said  they,  "  you  wiU  have  your  tongue  cut  out." 
He  uttered  not  a  word,  only  as  the  absurdities  and  myste- 
ries went  on,  some  severe  smiles  escaped  him  ;  then  they 
dressed  him  in  the  rd)e  de  foly  a  coarse  garment  worn  by 
the  poorer  peasantry.  "  Oh  God !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  is 
there  any  greater  honor  than  to  receive  the  Hvery  which 
Thy  Son  received  in  the  house  of  Herod  ?  "  and  then  he 
mounted  a  cart,  used  to  carry  mud  or  dust,  and  with  the 
Dominican  monks  proceeded  to  the  place  of  execution. 
As  the  cart  moved  slowly  along,  he  threw  out  his  words 
upon  the  crowd  by  the  side  of  the  cart.  "  Thinking  no- 
thing of  his  own  death,"  says  a  writer,  "  he  scattered  the 
seeds  of  the  Gospel"  "  Either  recant  or  hold  your  tongue," 
said  the  priest.  Alexander  turned  round  and  said  with 
firmness,  "  I  will  not  renounce  Jesus  Christ ;  depart  from 
me,  ye  deceivers  of  the  people."  He  obtained  permission, 
at  the  place  of  execution,  to  address  some  words  to  the 
people  ;  but  the  words  amounted  to  fervid  and  glowing 
confessions  of  love  to  the  Redeemer,  and  when  he  had 


A  Bold  French  JPreaeher,  2 1 

done,  he  said  to  the  executioner,  "  Proceed."  The  officers 
of  justice  then  bound  him  to  the  stake,  and  set  it  on  fire, 
and  amidst  the  crackhng  of  the  wood,  and  the  ascending 
flames,  arose  his  voice,  "Oh  my  Eedeemer !  oh  my  Re- 
deemer ! "  At  last  his  voice  was  silent.  Even  the  exe- 
cutioners turned  to  each  other  and  said,  "  What  a  strange 
criminal  this  is  ; "  and  the  monks  turned  to  each  other  and 
said,  "  If  that  man  be  not  saved,  who  will  be  ?  "  and  the 
spectators  beat  u^on  their  breasts,  and  said,  "A  great 
wrong  has  been  done  to  that  man."  Such  a  death  as  this 
is  a  triumph,  and  it  tolls  the  knell  of  the  executioners, 
while  it  prepares  the  crown  for  the  victim. 

There  was  a  preacher  who  when  called,  in  those  evil  days, 
to  preach  before  that  great  persecutor,  Francis  I.,  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Eustache  in  Paris,  and  before  an  immense 
crowd  of  ecclesiastics  and  courtiers,  had  the  courage  to 
exclaim,  as  he  warmed  with  his  subject:  "The  end  of  all 
visible  things  is  to  lead  us  to  invisible  things.  The  bread 
which  refreshes  our  body  tells  us  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
hght  of  our  soul.  Seated  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  Jesus 
hves  by  His  Holy  Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  His  disciples. 

*  Quce  sursum  sunt  quoeritej'  says  St.  Paul;  '  vM  Christus  est 
in  dexter  a  Dei  sedens.'  Yes,  ^  Seek  those  things  which  are 
above,'  Do  not  confine  yourselves  during  mass  to  what  is 
upon  the  altar;  rise,  yourselves,  by  faith,  there  to  find  the 
Son  of  God.  After  he  has  consecrated  the  elements,  does 
not  the  priest  cry  out  to  the  people,  'jSursuin, — corda  ! ' — 

*  Lift  up  your  hearts ! '  These  words  signify :  Here  is  the 
bread,  and  here  is  the  wine,  but  Jesus  is  in  Heaven.  For 
this  reason.  Sire,"  he  continued,  turning  to  the  king,  "  if 
you  wish  to  have  Jesus  Christ,  do  not  look  for  Him  in  the 
visible  elements,  soar  to  Heaven  on  the  wings  of  faith.  '  It 
is  beheving  in  Jesus  Christ  that  we  eat  His  flesh,"  said  St. 
Augustine.  If  it  were  true  that  Christ  must  be  touched  by 
the  hands,  and  devoured  by  the  teeth,  we  should  not  say 


22         Lamps  J  Pitcliers,  and  Trumpets. 

'sui^sum* — upwards,  but  ^ deorsuiv! — downwards!  Sire,  it 
is  to  Heaven  I  invite  you.  Hear  the  voice  of  the  Lord. 
'Sursum, — corda/  Sire,  ' Siirsum, — corda!'"  And  the  so- 
norous voice  of  the  priest  filled  the  whole  church  with  those 
thi'illing  words,  produced  with  a  tone  of  the  sincerest  con- 
viction. This  was  brave  preaching,  when  a  wave  of  the 
royal  hand  might,  for  such  words,  hale  the  preacher  away 
to  the  prison  and  the.  stake.  They  preached,  these  noble 
men — whom  some,  in  our  days,  affect  to  despise — in  the 
Courts,  and  at  the  very  stake  itseK.  I^Aubigne  tells  the 
story  of  Master  Caturce,  a  lecturer  on  theolog}^  and  licen- 
tiate of  theology,  and  a  grimly  humorous  story  it  is  : 

He  was  declared  a  heretic,  condemned  to  be  burnt  alive,  and 
taken  to  the  square  of  St.  Etienne. 

Here  an  immense  crowd  had  assembled,  especially  of  students 
of  the  university,  who  were  anxious  to  witness  the  degradation 
of  so  esteemed  a  professor.  The  "  mystery"  lasted  three  hours 
of  triumph  for  the  Word  of  God.  Neyer  had  Caturce  spoken 
with  greater  freedom.  In  answer  to  everything  that  was  said, 
he  brought  some  passage  of  Scripture  "  very  pertinent  to  re- 
prove the  stupidity  of  his  judges  before  the  scholars."  His 
academical  robes  were  taken  off,  the  costume  of  a  merry-andrew 
was  put  on  him,  and  then  another  scene  began. 

A  Dominican  monk,  wearing  a  white  robe  and  scapulary, 
with  a  black  robe  and  pointed  cap,  made  his  way  through  the 
crowd,  and  ascended  a  little  wooden  pulpit  which  had  been  set 
up  in  the  middle  of  the  square.  This  by  no  means  learned  in- 
dividual assumed  an  important  air,  for  he  had  been  commis- 
sioned to  deliver  what  was  called  "  the  sermon  of  catholic  faith." 
In  a  voice  that  was  heard  all  over  the  square,  he  read  his  text : 
The  Spirit  spealceth  expressly,  that  in  the  latter  times  some  shall 
depart  from  the  faith^  (/i'i^in{/  heed  to  seducing  spirits  and  doctrines 
of  devils.  The  monks  were  delighted  with  a  text  which  ap- 
peared so  suitable ;  but  Caturce,  who  almost  knew  his  Testa- 
.  ment  by  heart,  perceiving  that,  according  to  their  custom  of 
distorting  Scripture,  he  had  only  taken  a  fragment  {lopin)  of 


The  Preacliing  of  Master  Caturce,        23 

the  passage,  cried  out  in  a  loud  voice  :  "  Read  on."  The  Dom- 
inican, who  felt  alarmed,  stoj^ped  short,  upon  which  Caturce 
himself  completed  the  passage :  Forbidding  to  marry ^  and  com- 
manding to  abstain  from  ineats^  ichich  Ood  had  created  to  be  re- 
ceived icith  thanksgiving  of  them  which  believe.  The  monks  were 
confounded ;  the  students  and  other  friends  of  the  licentiate 
smiled.  "  JVe  know  them,"  continued  the  energetic  professor, 
"  those  deceivers  of  the  people,  who  instead  of  the  doctrine 
of  faith,  feed  them  with  trash.  In  God's  service  there  is 
no  question  of  fish,  or  of  flesh,  of  black,  or  of  grey,  of  Wednes- 
day, or  of  Friday It  is  nothing  but  foolish 

superstition  which  requires  celibacy  and  abstaining  from  meats. 
Such  are  not  the  commandments  of  God."  The  Dominican  in 
his  pulpit  listened  with  astonishment ;  the  x)risoner  was  preach- 
ing in  the  midst  of  the  officers  of  justice,  and  the  students  heard 
him  "  with  great  favor."  The  poor  Dominican,  ashamed  of  his 
folly,  left  his  sermon  unpreached. 

After  this,  the  martyr  was  led  back  to  the  court,  where  sen- 
tence of  death  was  pronounced  upon  him.  Caturce  surveyed 
his  judges  with  indignation,  and,  as  he  left  the  tribunal,  ex- 
claimed in  Latin  :  "  Thou  seat  of  iniquity !  Thou  court  of  in- 
justice ! "  He  was  now  led  to  the  scaflbld,  and  at  the  stake 
continued  exhorting  the  people  to  know  Jesus  Christ.  "It  is 
impossible  to  calculate  the  great  fruit  wrought  by  his  death," 
says  the  chronicle,  "  especially  among  the  students  then  at  the 
university  of  Toulouse,"  that  is  to  say,  in  the  year  1532. 

Would  that  we  had  some  Yasari,  or  Lanzi,  or  Sterling, 
to  tell  the  tale  of  the  pulpit,  as  those  dehglitful  writers  have 
told  the  tale  of  the  art  of  painting,  and  its  triumphs  and 
glories.  Surely,  it  is  worthy! — surely,  the  story  of  the 
lamp,  pitcher,  and  trumpet  is  equal  in  interest  and  in  value 
to  that  of  the  crayon,  the  palette,  or  the  pencil !  How  can 
the  story  of  painting  be  expected  to  compare  with  the  story 
of  preaching  ? — the  story  of  the  way  in  which  souls  in  the 
new  creation  were  quickened  and  kept  alive  ?  Looking 
among  the   marvels  of  the  microscope,  bending  the  eye 


24         Lamjps^  Pitcliers^  and  Irumpets, 

througli  the  lens,  the  reader  has,  perhaps,  watched  the 
crystallisation  of  some  acid.  A  marvellous  sight! — gor- 
geous spears,  and  prismatic  piUars  of  crystal  shooting  over 
the  disc !  A  moment  since  it  was  aU  opaque,  and  now  it  is 
all  acope,  aflame  with  hghtnings;  a  field  with  arms  flashing 
in  the  sun;  a  theatre  resplendent  with  diamonds:  but  the 
birth  of  souls — the  awakening  of  souls;  new'  affections 
shooting  forth ;  new  developments — consciousness,  holiness, 
and  power;  the  minister  has  believed  that  he  beheld  all 
this.  The  artist  beheves  in  beauty,  in  the  ideal ;  the 
preacher  in  holiness,  in  life.  Therefore,  what  stories  of 
martyrdoms! — ^what  enthuslSasm!  sometimes,  it  may  be, 
what  fanaticism!  But  artists  have  been  fanatics  too — 
Blake,  Haydon,  Kibera  ;  but  they  neither  interfere  with  our 
admiration  of  the  art  nor  the  appreciation  of  the  men. 

In  chapters  in  the  Romance  of  the  Pulpit,  must  be  men- 
tioned Dr.  Abel  Stevens's  History  of  Methodism,'^  and  Dr. 
Sprague's  Annals  of  the  American  Methodist  Fuipit,'\  Here 
is  a  succession  of  tales  of  extraordinary  power  and  wonder  ; 
here  are  the  stories  of  heroes,  stories  of  marvellous  adven- 
ture, and  triumph,  and  spiritual  conquest.  It  is  a  pleasant 
conviction  with  us,  that  no  human  chapter  is  more  full  of 
wonder  and  delight  than  the  history  of  the  pulpit  in  all 
ages.  It  has  always  been  wonderful  where  it  has  been  real, 
from  that  day  when  Peter's  sermons  pierced  the  hearts  of 
his  hearers,  down  through  the  times  of  the  dark  and  the 

*  The  History  of  the  Beligious  Movement  of  the  Eighteenth  Gen- 
turyy  called  Methodism.  By  Abel  Stevens,  LL.D.,  New  York.  A 
most  entertaining  repertory  of  pulpit  anecdote  of  the  period  to 
which  it  refers;  an  eloquent  story,  told  by  a  sympathetic  and 
hearty  Methodist,  only  too  little  disposed  to  see  the  presence  of  the 
divine  life  in  others  than  that  Church  whose  history  he  recites. 

f  Annals  of  the  American  Methodist  Pulpit.  By  William  B. 
Sprague,  New  York.  This  bulky  work  is  overflowingly  full  of  the 
delightful  garrulousness  of  many  men. 


Chapters  in  the  Romance  of  the  Pulpit    25 

Middle  Ages,  in  every  country,  where  it  has  tried  and  tested 
its  power — in  France,  in  Geneva,  in  Scotland,  England,  and 
America.  Dr.  Stevens  tells  one  part  of  the  story,  and  tells 
it  well — recites  the  rise  and  progress  of  Methodism,  with 
its  mighty  array  of  marvellous  men.  Heroism  and  adven- 
ture meet  us  ever^^where,  as  in  those  days  when  stalwart 
old  woodland  shepherds  carried  the  first  x^reachers  on  their 
backs  through  the  snowdiifts,  which  choked  the  old  Enghsh 
roads  in  the  winter  ;  or  the  days  when  a  preacher  was  seen 
with  a  spade  strapped  on  his  saddle  behind,  taking  his  de- 
parture from  Macclesfield  for  the  bleak  portion  of  his  cn- 
cuit — the  spade  being  deemed  needful  to  cut  a  way  through 
the  snow.  "  I  am  but  a  brown-bread  preacher,"  said  one 
of  them,  "  I  have  nothing  of  politeness  in  my  language  or 
address  ;  but  I  seek  to  help  all  I  can  to  Heaven  in  the  best 
way  I  can.  I  have  been  in  dangers  by  snowdrifts  and  land 
floods,  by  falls  from  my  horse,  by  persecution,  sickness, 
cold,  pain,  weakness,  and  weariness  ;  trials  of  heart,  and 
understanding,  and  judgment,  and  various  reasonings  with 
friends  and  foes,  men  and  devils,  and  most  with  myseK." 
He  goes  on  to  say  how  "through  all  he  has  been  kept,"  and 
moderately  ventures  to  beheve  he  has  not  been  useless, 
while  assiu'edly  he  has  been  happy.  Such  were  the  men 
whose  stories  the  goodly  volumes  of  Sprague  and  Stevens 
tell.  It  reminds  us  of  Gideon  dividing  his  three  hundred 
men  into  three  companies,  putting  a  trumpet  into  every 
man's  hand,  a  pitcher  into  the  other  hand,  and  a  lamp  in 
the  pitcher.  Truly,  a  strange  and  wonderful  sight  to  see 
an  army  of  thousands  flying,  cutting  each  other  in  pieces, 
while  the  Israehtes  only  stood  by  with  the  sounding  trum- 
pet, and  the  gleaming  lamp  !  The  story  of  the  great  Meth- 
odist movement  is  very  much  like  this  miraculous,  liistoric, 
and  dramatic  scene.  But,  on  all  hands  we  hear  that  the 
pulpit  is  worthless  now  ;  there  are  not  wanting  proposals 
to  aboHsh  it.  We  receive  lectures  in  homiletics  from  those 
2 


26  Lamps,  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets. 

remarkable  preachers,  The  Saturday  BevieiVj  The  Times, 
and  The  Daily  Telegraph.  "Whj"  says  one  in  a  letter,  we 
believe,  to  The  Times,  or  to  one  of  the  High  Church  organs, 
"  Why  this  preaching  ?  why  does  this  man  talk  to  us  ?  who 
is  he,  tliat  he  should  talk  ?  why  not  be  content  to  worship 
only,  when  we  go  to  church  ?  Besides,  ministers  are  sim- 
ply nuisances  ;"  and  it  must  be  said,  so  far,  in  apology  for 
this,  that  if  the  pulpit  cannot  prove  itself,  it  had  better  go 
down.  But  most  of  the  sharp,  shrill  querulousnesses 
against  the  pulpit  have  come  from  Church  organs  ;  and 
certainly,  of  nearly  the  twenty  thousand  clergymen  in  the 
English  Church,  few  enough  give  full  proof  of  their  minis- 
try. Do  not  most  of  these  fastidious  critics  demand,  as  the 
great  essentials  for  pulpit  eminence,  that  the  ear  should  be 
tickled,  and  the  soul  put  to  sleep  ?  How  truly  amusing  to 
think  of  such  unconverted  pagans  and  PhiHstines  as  Satur- 
day Reviewers  and  Daily  Telegraphs  jeremiadizing  over  the 
decay  of  power  in  the  pulpit.  "We  have  sometimes  thought 
of  proposing  the  other  thing  : — "  Instead  of,  or,  as  well  as, 
putting  down  the  pulpit,  why  not  put  an  end  to  sculpture, 
or  to  painting?  Cutting  out  bits  of  things  in  marble, 
smearing  colors  over  canvas!  Why  not  put  down  all 
poetry  ?  Are  not  poets  proverbially  nuisances,  with  their 
skreeds  of  bathos  ?  Let  us  put  down  all  art ;  why  not  ? 
for,  compared  with  the  pulpit,  what  pictures  or  sculptures 
excite  so  much,  what  music,  or  poetry  awakens  more  emo- 
tion?" 

What  is  this  sublime  impelling  instinct  for  souls — ^for  the 
salvation  of  souls — which  these  preachers  have  known  ? — 
this  divine  and  hallowed  fanaticism  of  love  for  souls  and  for 
God? — the  realization  of  those  fervid  words  written  by 
that  saintly  woman,  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon : 

My  whole  heart  has  not  one  single  grain  this  moment  of  thirst 
after  approbation.     I  feel  alone  with  God.     He  fills  the  whole 


John  Nelson. 


27 


void.  I  see  all  mortals  under  my  feet.  I  have  not  one  wish,  one 
will,  one  desire,  but  in  Him ;  He  hath  set  my  feet  in  a  large 
room.  All  but  God's  children  seem  but  so  many  machines  ap- 
pointed for  uses  I  have  nothing  to  do  with.  I  have  w^ondered 
and  stood  amazed  that  God  should  make  a  conquest  of  all  within 
me  by  love.  I  am  brought  to  less  than  nothing — broken  in 
pieces  like  a  potter's  vessel.  I  long  to  leap  into  the  flames  to 
get  rid  of  my  sinful  flesh,  and  that  every  atom  of  these  ashes 
might  be  separate,  and  that  neither  time,  place,  nor  person 
should  stay  God's  Spirit.* 

And  this  sublime  affection  led  her  to  forget,  and  almost 
renounce  her  rank,  and  leave  her  fortune  of  JS100,000  upon 
the  altar  of  God  her  Saviour.  The  same  divine  passion  im- 
pelled that  very  different  character,  but  equally  eminently 
holy  person,  John  Nelson,  through  his  adventurous  and 
holy  career  ;  when  in  country  cages,  and  through  howding 
crowTls,  and  guarded  through  streets  by  armed  troops,  and 
multitudes  huzzaing  round  him  as  if  he  had  been  one  who 
had  laid  waste  the  nation,  he  says  :  "  The  Lord  made  my 
brow  like  brass,  so  that  I  could  look  upon  them  all  as 
grass-hoppers,  and  pass  through  the  city  as  if  there  had 
been  none  in  it  but  God  and  me."  Insulted,  and  scoffed, 
and  persecuted — a  giant  in  strength — a  gentleman  in  na- 
ture and  character  ;  but  a  child  of  God,  he  says  :  "  I  was 
able  to  tie  the  head  and  the  heels  of  the  wicked,  ignorant 
man,  who  could  thus  torment  me,  together.  I  found  an 
old  man's  bone  in  me  ;  but  the  Lord  lifted  up  a  standard 
when  anger  was  commg  in  like  a  flood,  lest  I  should  have 
wrung  his  neck  to  the  g found,  and  set  my  foot  upon  him." 
Such  stories,  the  history  of  the  pulpit  has  to  tell,  are  sure- 
ly not  uninteresting  to  any  who  love  to  mark  the  conquests 
of  holy  powder  and  holy  speech. 

*  Letter  to  Mr.  John  Wesley.  See  that  remarkable  story,  The 
Life  and  Times  of  Selina,  Countess  of  Huntingdon.  Two  volumes  ; 
a  work  to  whose  rich  store  of  anecdote  Dr.  Stevens  has  been  largely 
indebted. 


28  Lamps  ^  Pitchers  J  aiid  Trumpets, 

The  Methodist  pulpit  of  the  United  States  is  not  one 
whit  less  interesting,  rather  more  so,  I  think,  than  our  own. 
Had  not  Dr.-  Sprague  brought  together  such  an  interesting 
variety  of  biography  and  anecdote  in  his  Annds  of  the 
American  llethodid  Pulpit,  we  should  have  hoped  that  the 
subject  would  have  brought  from  Dr.  Stevens  a  fourth  vol- 
ume ;  and  still  there  is  room  ;  and  from  his  pen  it  could 
only  be  most  pleasant  reading. 

For  very  wonderful  is  the  story  of  the  lamp  and  pitcher 
in  many  of  the  dark  places  of  that  gxeat  continent — the 
varied  region  of  the  United  States — the  hves  of  bishops, 
not  addressed  as  "  My  Lord,"  wearing  no  episcopal  title  or 
dignity,  having  no  splendid  palace,  no  magnificent  cathe- 
dral, no  snug  diocese,  no  princely  income.  Scholars,  men 
of  genius,  like  Asbury,  separating  themselves  from  all  the 
comforts  and  conveniences  of  life,  for  sixty  dollars  a  year, 
with  a  traveUing  equipage,  not  of  a  chariot  and  four,  but 
of  saddle-bags  and  one  ;  ^  plunging  into  the  wilderness  to 
seek  for  lost  sheep,  preaching  in  barns,  on  stumps  of  trees, 
in  log  huts,  in  ilhmitable  woods,  in  the  houseless  forest,  by 
blazed  trees  in  deep  prairies  ;  floundering  through  swamps, 
swimming  vast  rivers,  drenched  by  pitiless  rains,  scorched 
by  suns,  bitten  by  frosts  and  driving  snows.  From  some 
of  these  places  they  wrote  for  a  preacher  :  "Be  sure  and 
•  send  us  a  good  swimmer  ;"  there  was  considerable  wonder 
as  to  what  this  could  mean,  till  it  turned  out  that  the  dis- 
trict was  full  of  bridgeless  streams,  and  the  last  minister 
had  been  drowned  because  he  could  not  swim.  Sometimes 
the  travelling  preacher  or  bishop  found  himself  among  hos- 
tile Indians,  in  the  solitude  of  the  forest  ;  he  knew  their 
track  and  trail ;  at  night  he  heard  their  yell,  and  unexpect- 
edly foimd  himself  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  camp- 

*  See  an  interesting  article,  "  Metkodist  Clerical  Biography," 
North  American  Review,  No.  194,  1 862. 


PreacJiera  in  the  American  Backwoods. 


29 


fii'G,  and  tlie  crack  of  the  Indian  rifle.  Tlie  intrepid  and 
heroic  preacher  urged  his  way  over  mountains,  and  through 
valleys,  stirrmg  the  community,  wherever  he  came,  with 
hymn  and  sermon  ;  reaching  the  villages  and  little  settle- 
ments dotting  the  country,  amidst  extensive  wildernesses, 
for  the  most  part  the  undisturbed  abode  of  the  woK  and 
the  panther.  Neither  the  cold,  or  storms  of  winter,  nor 
the  abuse  he  received  from  wicked  men,  could  weaken  his 
energy,  or  impede  his  progress.  If  the  horse  was  not  in 
the  way,  then  often  the  saddle-bags  had  to  be  carried  over 
the  shoulder,  and  he  travelled  on  foot.  Sometimes,  there 
were  no  saddle-bags.  "  George,"  said  Bishop  Asbuiy  to 
George  Eoberts  ;  "  George,  where  are  your  clothes  T 
"  Bishop,  they  are  on  my  back.  On  receiving  my  appoint- 
ment at  your  hand.  Sir,  I  am  not  compelled  to  return  to 
my  circuit  for  my  clothes,  but  I  am  ready,  at  a  moment's 
w^aming,  to  go  whithersoever  you  direct."  His  son,  Dr. 
Eoberts,  says  :  "  I  have  in  my  possession  the  needle  and 
thread  case,  which  were  his  constant  companions.  If  his 
clothes,  from  any  unexpected  cause,  needed  attention,  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  turning  aside  into  some  retired  spot  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  them  off  and  mending  them."  In  the 
lives  of  Eomish  saints — St.  Francis,  or  St.  Dominic — these 
would  be  thought  most  picturesque  and  wonderful  rehcs. 
Sometimes,  the  i^reacher,  in  the  depth  of  the  prairie,  came 
upon  a  band  of  white  heathen.  Thus  Eichard  Nolley,  one 
of  these  good  and  great  men,  discovered  the  track  of  an 
emigrant  family,  and  followed  it.  "What,"  said  the  man 
who  was  leading  it  into  the  v/ilderness,  "a  Methodist 
preacher !  I  quit  Virginia  to  be  out  of  the  way  of  them, 
but  in  my  settlement  in  Georgia,  I  thought  I  should  be  be- 
yond i}ieir  reach.  There  they  were,  and  they  got  my  wife 
and  daughter  into  their  church.  Then  I  come  here  to 
Chocktaw  corner,  find  a  good  piece  of  land,  feel  sure  that 
I  shall  have  some  peace  from  the  preachers,  and  here  is 


^o  Lamp8^  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 

one  before  I've  unloaded  my  wagon!"  "My  friend/' 
said  Nolley,  "if  you  go  to  heaven,  youll  find  Methodist 
preachers  there  ;  and  if  you  go  to  hell,  I'm  afraid  you'll 
find  some  there  ;  and  you  see  how  it  is  in  this  world.  I'd 
advise  you  to  come  to  terms  with  God,  and  then  you'U  be 
at  peace  with  us."  Sometimes  they  died  in  the  wilderness, 
and  "  no  man  knew  the  place  of  their  sepulchre."  Months, 
and  sometunes  years,  elapsed  before  it  was  known  they 
had  gone  to  their  reward.  These  men  have  been  called 
the  graduates  of  Brush  College,  Fellows  of  Swamp  Uni- 
versity. "  How  is  it  you  have  "  no  Doctors  of  Divinity  ?" 
said  one  to  fine  old  Jacob  Krubee,  a  preacher  of  this  order. 
"  Our  divinity  is  not  sick,  "  and  does  not  need  doctoring," 
said  the  old  man.  A  witty,  satuical  old  creature  this 
Kruber — able,  learned,  sarcastic,  and  eloquent.  He  hved 
during  the  days  of  the  Eevolution  in  Ameiica,  and  being 
called  on  to  pray  on  some  great  public  occasion,  he  de- 
livered himself  of  the  following  petition  :  "  O  Lord,  have 
mercy  on  the  sovereigns  of  Europe ;  convert  their  souls  ; 
give  them  short  lives  and  happy  deaths  ;  take  them  to 
heaven,  and  let  us  have  no  more  of  them."  Sometimes 
the  biter  got  bitten.  When  he  Hved  at  Lewiston  he  came 
frequently  into  contact  with  a  Catholic  priest,  not  much  be- 
hind him  in  the  use  of  edged  tools.  He  met  the  priest  one 
day,  not  as  usual,  on  horseback,  but  trudging  on  foot:  said 
Kniber,  "Where's  your  horse?  why  don't  you  ride?" 
"  Oh,"  said  the  other,  rather  testily,  "  the  beast's  dead  1" 
"  Dead  1  well,  I  suppose  he  is  in  purgatory  ?"  "  Nay,  the 
wretched  creature  turned  Methodist  just  before  he  died, 
and  went  straight  to  heU."  Old  Kruber  was  greatly  averse 
to  read  sermons — for  even  in  those  days  there  were  read- 
ers of  sermons  in  the  pulpit.  Once  a  youthful  Congrega- 
tional minister  read  before  him  ;  Jacob  also  had  to  follow 
the  young  man  in  preaching,  and  it  was  expected  he  would 
give  the  young  brother  a  thrust  for  the  use  of  his  notes. 


Preacliers  in  the  American  Backwoods,    3 1 

He  finished,  however,  without  eaying  a  word  that  looked 
towards  the  manuscrix^t ;  but,  in  his  concluding  prayer,  he 
uttered  these  strange  petitions  :  "  Lord,  bless  the  man  who 
has  read  to  us  to-day  ;  let  liis  heart  be  as  soft  as  his  head, 
and  then  he  will  do  us  some  good."  "  How  do  you  make 
your  preachers  ?"  was  once  said  to  one  of  these  fine  old 
preachers  of  the  woods.  "Why,  we  old  ones  tell  the 
young  ones  aU  we  know,  and  they  try  to  teU  the  people 
all  they  can,  and  they  keep  on  trying  till  they  can — that's 
our  college."  One  was  asked,  "Do  you  belong  to  the 
standing  order  ? "  "  No,"  he  said,  "  I  belong  to  the 
kneeling  order."*  They  were  sharp  men.  One  day, 
while  Dr.  Bostwick  was  riding  along  on  the  well-known 
Methodist  horse,  a  man  rode  up,  insolently  laid  his  hand 
on  the  Doctor's  bridle,  and  said  :  "  I  would  as  soon  ride 
the  devil  as  ride  this  horse."  "  Oh  !"  said  Bostwick,  "how 
'  it  would  look  to  see  a  chikl  riding  his  own  father !"  The 
man  put  spurs  to  his  own  steed,  and,  without  a  word,  gal- 
loped away.  There  was  BiUy  Hibbard,  shrev/d,  powerful 
in  his  dealings  with  the  souls  of  men,  but  a  mighty  Armi- 
nian.  "Brother  Hibbard,"  said  a  Calvinistic  minister  to 
him  one  day,  "  you  hurt  my  feelings  in  preaching  yester- 
day." "  Why,  brother,  how  did  I  do  that  ?"  He  referred 
him  to  some  doctrinal  remark  in  his  discourse.  "  Oh  1" 
said  Hibbard,  "  I'm  sorry  you  took  that,  I  meant  that  for 
the  devil,  and  you  stepped  in  and  took  it  yourself  ;  don't 
get  between  me  and  the  devil,  brother,  and  you  won't  get 
your  feelings  hurt."  Like  our  own  famous  Dawson,  he 
would  scarcely  be  known  by  the  more  elegant  and  eu- 
phonious name  of  William  :  when  Bishop  Asbury  was 
presiding  at  the  roll-call  of  the  Conference,  he  objected 
answeiing  to  that  name,  insisting  that  his  name  was  BUly. 
"  Why,  Brother  Hibbard,"  said  Asbury,  "  Billy  is  a  httle 

*  The  Lije  of  Jacob  Kriiber.    By  W.  P.  Strickland.     Seventh 
Thousand.     New  York,  1866. 


22         Lamps  J  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets, 

boy's  name  !"  "  Yes,  Bishop,"  he  said,  "  and  I  was  a  little 
boy  when  my  father  gave  it  me."  These  men  had  few 
books — the  Bible,  PilgrMs  Progress,  and  a  few  such,  in 
their  saddle-bags,  formed  their  whole  hbrar}^  ;  yet  some 
became  great  scholars,  and  masterly  divines.  But  the 
open  pages  of  the  book  of  Nature  were  before  them,  and 
in  keen  encounters  with  men  they  learned  a  thousand 
things  hidden  from  ordinary  eyes  ;  and  thus  were  trained  a 
healthful  body,  a  weU-developed  muscular  system,  large 
strong  lungs ;  a  vigorous  constitution,  a  workshop  and 
dwelling-place  for  a  wise  and  vigorous  mind.  How  a 
man  could  become  a  strong  preacher  and  thinker  while 
ranging  those  mighty  solitudes,  sleeping  in  small  apart- 
ments, containing  all  the  family  and  such  domestic  animals 
as  shared  a  backwoodman's  fireside,  seems  wonderful.  They 
suffered  many  persecutions.  They  had  not  much  to  say  of 
moral  beauty,  necessary  relations,  a  priori  and  d  posteriori 
vohtions,  and  intellectual  processes,  and  active  powers  ; 
but  it  is  said,  and  v^e  beheve  it,  they  talked  of  sin  so  as  to 
make  the  flesh  creep,  and  the  hair  stand  on  end  ;  and  they 
talked  of  the  love  of  the  Saviour  and  the  freedom  of  His 
grace,  so  as  to  make  the  heart  rejoice,  and  tears  come  to 
the  eyes.  Their  intellectual  heraldry  was  not  in  their  ar- 
mour, but  in  their  muscle,  they  were  not  educated  to  a  sup- 
pression of  their  instincts,  nor  formalized  to  a  slavery  of 
metaphysics.  Certainly,  they  would  not  have  deserved  the 
censure  pronounced  upon  a  florid  metaphysical  preacher — 
of  whom  his  people,  during  the  week,  saw  nothing — that 
"on  six  days  of  the  week  he  was  invisible,  and  on  the 
seventh  he  was  incomprehensible ;"  and  they  might  have 
reversed  the  remark  of  the  bishop  to  the  young  man  who 
appHed  to  him  for  ordination  :  *'  I  do  not  forbid  you  to 
preach,  but  both  Natui'e  and  Grace  do."  Thus,  without 
dwelling  at  greater  length  on  this  subject — which  I  have 
only  touched  for  the  purpose  of  mtroducing  Dr.  Steven's 


Foolisli  Decoration  of  the  Pitcher,        3  3 

completed  work  to  you,  while  expressing  my  regret  that  he 
has  not  availed  himseK  of  the  w^ealth  of  anecdotal  material 
for  the  continuation  of  the  story  to  the  pulpit  of  his  own 
land — I  only  again  renew  my  expression  of  the  interest  of 
the  work  itself.  Bramwell  and  Bradshaw,  Story,  and  Sa- 
ville.  Coke,  Mather,  Newton,  and  Bunting,  Hanby,  and  the 
glorious  hymnologist,  the  Welsh  cobbler,  Olivers  ;  such, 
wdth  a  multitude  of  other  names,  are  those  which  j)ass  be- 
fore us  in  those  volumes. 

To  many,  perhaps  to  some  among  my  hearers,  my  re- 
marks of  admiration  upon  this  soul-searchmg  preaching 
will  seem  simply  contemptible.  In  none  of  the  men  to 
whom  I  have  referred  was  the  pitcher  of  much  importance 
compared  with  the  lamp.  With  us,  almost  all  our  atten- 
tion goes  to  the  pitcher  ;  there  is  great  attention  to  the 
shape  of  it  ;  it  must  be  a  vase — Etruscan — ^with  a  copious 
amphtude  of  decoration.  But  let  us  change  our  figure. 
If  a  man  want  water,  if  he  be  perishing  for  vv^ater,  do  we 
say,  "  Ah  !  we  must  wait  until  we  can  fetch  our  gold  cup, 
our  richly-chased,  antique,  Benvenuto  Celhni  cup  T  "  Never 
mind  that,"  says  the  man,  "water — good  measure  of  water 
— ^in  the  common  earthenware  pitcher,  will  do.  I  perish 
for  water !"  And  many  die  for  want  of  the  "  Water  of 
Life  "  in  this  land  ;  like  Coleridge's  Ancierd  Mariner  on  the 
salt  sea  : 

Water,  water  everywhere. 

And  all  the  boards  did  shrink  ; 
Water,  water  everywhere, 

And  not  a  drop  to  drink. 

For  ever  decorating  the  pitcher !  Some  cannot  even  talk 
good  plain  Enghsh — cannot  even  avail  themselves  of  intel- 
ligible decorations.  Thus,  one  minister  describes  a  tear 
*'  as  that  small  particle  of  aqueous  fluid,  trickhng  from  the 
visual  organ  over  the  lineaments  of  the  countenance,  be- 
2* 


24  Lamps,  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets. 

tokening  grief."  I  have  heard  of  one  talking  in  the  pulpit 
of  "  the  deep,  intuitive  glance  of  the  soul,  penetrating  be- 
yond the  surface  of  the  superficial  phenomenal,  to  the  re- 
laote  recesses  of  absolute  entity,  or  being  ;  thus  adumbrat- 
ing its  immortahty  in  its  precognitive  perceptions  ;"  while 
another — and  he  a  highly  eminent  man !  head  of  a  college 
for  ministers ! — when  he  read  a  well-known  passage  of 
Scripture,  shrunk  from  the  plain  vernacular,  " '  He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me,  as  the  Scripture  hath  said,  out  of  his ' " — he 
took  refuge  in  the  classics — "  his  ventriculum  '  shall  flow 
rivers  of  hving  water.'  "  Yes,  preachers  ought  to  know  how 
to  use  words,  or  else  calamities  will  happen.  Take  the  fol- 
lowing as  an  illustration  :  "A  clergyman,  while  composing 
a  sermon,  made  use  of  the  words  'ostentatious  man.' 
Throwing  down  his  pen,  he  wished  to  "satisfy  himself 
before  he  proceeded,  as  to  whether  a  great  portion  of  his 
congregation  might  comprehend  the  meaning  of  these 
w^ords,  and  he  adopted  the  following  method  of  proof. 
Einging  the  bell,  his  footman  appeared,  and  he  was  thus 
addressed  by  his  master,  '  What  do  you  conceive  '  to  be 
implied  by  an  ostentatious  man  T  *  An  ostentatious  man, 
Sir,'  said  Thomas  ;  '  why.  Sir,  I  should  say  a  perfect  gentle- 
man.' 'Very  good,'  observed  the  vicar,  'send  Ellis,  the 
coachman,  here.'  '  Ellis,'  said  the  vicar,  '  what  do  you  im- 
agine an  ostentatious  man  to  be  ?'  '  An  ostentatious  man, 
Sir,'  replied  Ellis,  'Why,  I  should  say,  'an  ostentatious 
man  means  what  we  calls,  saving  your  presence,  a  very 
jolly  fellow.'  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  "  add  that  the  vicar 
substituted  a  less  ambiguous  word."  Worse  still.  "A 
clerg^Tuan  was  sent  for  the  other  day.  "The  man  was 
rather  deaf  to  whom  he  was  called.  '  What  induced  you 
to  send  for  me,'  very  pompously  said  the  clergyman. 
'  Eh !'  '  What  induced  you,'  he  repeated,  '  to  send  for  me  ?' 
'  What  does  he  say  ?'  said  the  man  to  his  wife.  He  says, 
*  What  the  deuce  did  ye  send  for  him  for  ?' " 


Jonathan  Edioards. 


35 


Remarkably,  in  this  department  of  plain  speech  the  Ro- 
man Cathohcs  are  before  us.  The  work  of  the  Methodist 
revival  is  being  done  by  the  children  of  St.  Philip  Neri,  the 
Oratorians.  These  are  the  only  people,  almost,  who  preach 
to  the  poor.  What  do  Independents,  or  Baptists,  or,  for 
that  matter,  the  old  Methodists  either,  know  about  preach- 
ing  to  the  poor,  to  the  very  poor  ?  Our  chapels  and  churches 
are,  for  the  most  part,  it  is  to  be  feared,  luxuries  they  can- 
not afford  ;  and  if  we  send  ministers  down  to  the  alleys 
and  low  courts,  we  do  not  send,  as  Rome  sends,  gentlemen 
and  men  of  genius,  with  a  j)resence  of  dignity  and  a  heart 
of  affection,  we  make  the  great  mistake  of  sending  those 
who,  while  they  possess  frequently  the  coarseness  which  re- 
pels, do  not  carry  along  with  it  the  sweetness  and  the  dig- 
nity which  would  affect  and  command. 

Man  has  within  him  a  nature  which  thirsts  for  hving 
water — sighs  for  hght — longs  for  a  certain  sound  ;  and  the 
whole  stoiy  of  the  lamp,  the  pitcher,  and  the  trumpet,  is 
the  story  of  the  efforts  made  by  painful,  patient,  and  ear- 
nest men  to  supply  these  infinite  desires  and  wants.  To 
satisfy  such  infinite  desires,  some  of  the  most  glorious  and 
gifted  of  our  race  have  separated  themselves,  and  set  them- 
selves apart.  Jonathan  Edwards  had  many  of  the  attributes 
of  all — ^Hght,  refreshment,  and  awakening  ;  very  much  such 
a  character  as  the  lovely  and  illustrious  Bishop  Berkeley, 
he  ran  his  metaphysics  into  impossible  and  unattainable 
zeniths  and  heights.  His  freedom  of  the  will  is  unanswer- 
able, but  it  is  dreadful  ;  hke  Hegel,  he  dealt  with  the  uni- 
verse and  mind  as  pure  thought ;  but  a  tender  affectionate- 
ness  modulates  every  sentence  in  his  History  of  Bedemption  ; 
and  when  he  preached,  his  accents — permeated  by  deepest 
feehng,  justified  to  himself  by  profoundest  speculation, 
harmonized  and  fitted  to  his  conception  of  God's  purposes 
and  man's  responsibilities — compelled  men  to  listen,  and 
quiver,  and  tingle  through  every  nerve  of  their  moral  being 


3  6  Lamps ^  Pitcliers^  and  Trumpets. 

while  they  hstened.  Marvellously  inconsistent  seem  some 
of  the  moods  and  powers  of  the  preacher  with  some  of  the 
speculations  of  the  thinker  ;  and  wonderful,  it  sometimes 
seems,  that  so  sweet,  seraphic,  and  tender  a  nature  could 
have  been  so  scA'cre.  Emotion  welled  up  within  him,  but 
it  fell  into  the  ii'on  cistern  and  basin  of  hard  imperious 
logic.  An  American,  in  an  extraordinary  poem,  has  v/ell 
described  Edvfards,  his  life,  his  theology,  and  his  x^reach- 

ing: 

In  the  church  of  the  wilderness  Edwards  wrought, 

Shaping  his  creed  at  the  forge  of  thought, 

And  with  Thor's  own  hammer  welded  and  bent 

The  iron  links  of  his  argument ; 

Which  strove  to  grasp  in  its  mighty  si)an 

The  purpose  of  God  and  the  fate  of  man  ! 

Yet  faithful  still  in  his  daily  round 

To  the  weak,  and  the  i)oor,  and  the  sin-sick,  found 

The  schoolman's  lore  and  the  casuist's  art, 

Drew  warmth  and  life  from  his  fervent  heart. 

Had  he  not  seen  in  the  solitudes 

Of  his  deep  and  dark  Northampton  woods, 

A  vision  of  love  about  him  fall  ? — 

Not  the  blinding  splendour  that  fell  on  Saul, 

But  the  tender  glory  that  rests  on  them 

Who  walk  in  the  New  Jerusalem  ; 

Where  never  the  sun  nor  the  moon  are  known, 

But  the  Lord  and  His  love  are  the  light  alone  ! — 

And  watching  the  sweet,  still  countenance 

Of  the  wife  of  his  bosom  rapt  in  trance. 

Had  he  not  treasured  each  broken  word 

Of  the  mystical  v»^onder  seen  and  heard. 

And  loved  the  beautiful  dreamer  more. 

That  thus  to  the  desert  of  earth  she  bore 

Clusters  of  Esehol  from  Canaan's  shore  ?* 

Perhaps,  a  little  thought  will  explam  the  coherence  of 

^'  J.  Greenleaf  Whittier.     Poems,    Boston  j  Tick  nor  and  Fields. 
A  remarkable  poem,  called  "  The  Preacher." 


Whitefield.  27 

tlds  remarkable  character.  The  logical  impossibility  pre- 
pares the  way  for  the  Divine  possibilities  and  assurances 
of  grace,  when  science  only  reveals  her  despair.  The  su- 
pernatural missions  of  the  Spnit,  which  can  never  be 
straitened,  become  more  infinitely  blight,  and  soothing, 
and  tender  to  that  part  in  man,  which  can  never  be  satis- 
fied by  sequences  and  conclusions,  unless  they  minister  to 
its  infinite  hopes.  In  some  way,  this  same  contradiction 
has  been  felt  and  transcended  by  all  the  greatest  souls — 
by  Luther,  in  several  notable  and  noble  passages,  and 
more  popularly  by  Whitefield,  cd-Ued  to  sound  and  gauge 
the  moral  lai3se  of  his  race,  and  the  times  in  which  he 
hved,  and  to  draw  in  sharp  lines  the  contrast  of  human 
frailty,  and  the  perfect  law  of  truth  ; 

To  him,  in  the  painful  stress 
Of  zeal  on  fire  from  its  own  excess, 
Heaven  seemed  so  vast  and  earth  so  small, 
That  man  was  nothing,  since  God  was  all. 

This  would  be  all  imperfect — is,  perhaps,  imperfect — ^if  we 
did  not  remember  that  the  world  can  well  afibrd  a  prophet, 
his  soul  aU  on  fire  and  ablaze  with  zeal  for  the  Lord 
of  Hosts — coming  do^vn  from  his  rapt  communions  and 
divme  ai^d  illuminating  perceptions.  He  may  well  be 
hailed,  when  it  is  known  that  man  is  in  a  state  of  fearful 
aberration  from  the  rectitude  and  purity  of  the  divine 
law  ;  the  immense  lapse  in  the  one  instance  may  well  per- 
mit the  fearful  thunders  of  Ezekiel  or  Nahum  to  roll  in 
the  other,  and  preachmg  never  becomes  the  voice  of  inspi- 
ration to  startle  and  alarm,  until  the  infiniteness  of  divine 
law,  and  the  infinite  consequences  of  its  infractions  are 
perceived. 

Of  "Whitefield,  John  Newton  said : 

I  bless  God  that  I  have  lived  in  his  time ;  many  were  the 
winter  mornings  I  have  got  up  at  four  to  attend  his  Tabernacle 


2  8  Lamps ^  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets, 

discourses  at  five ;  and  I  have  seen  Moorfields  as  full  of  lanterns 
at  these  times,  as  I  suppose  the  Haymarket  is  full  of  flambeaux 
on  an  opera  night.  As  a  preacher,  if  any  man  were  to  ask  me 
who  was  the  second  I  ever  had  heard,  I  should  be  at  some  loss  ; 
but  in  regard  to  the  first,  Mr.  Whitefield  exceeded  so  far  every 
other  man  of  my  time,  that  I  should  be  at  none.  He  was  the 
original  of  popular  preaching,  and  all  our  popular  ministers 
are  only  his  copies. 

And  is  it  unnatural?  Is  it  only  in  the  material  and 
natural  world  that  lightnings  and  thunders  roll  and  rend  ? 
— only  in  the  lower  heavens  that  their  fui'ies  are  seen  to 
play  ?  Highest  minds  have  not  judged  so — the  mind  has 
its  tempests  which,  like  tragical  Titans,  tear  the  heavens, 
and  seem  to  pluck  down  judgments — and  "Whitefield  rent 
men's  souls  as  he  stood  and  cried,  "  Oh,  my  friends — the 
wrath  of  God !  the  wrath  of  God !" 


II. 


The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 


OU  have  not  to  be  told  that  there  is  a  town,  of 
all  the  towns  in  this  world  the  most  wonderful, 
the  most  ancient,  the  most  powerful,  the  most 
glorious,  and  the  most  famous.  Other  towns  have 
churches  and  cathedrals,  but  there  would  have  been  no 
churches  and  cathedrals  but  for  this  town  ;  other  towns 
have  castles,  and  moats,  and  fortifications,  but  there  would 
have  been  no  fortifications,  no  castles,  nor  bastions,  but  for 
this  town  ;  other  towns  have  had  their  senate  houses,  and 
parhaments,  and  halls,  and  judicial  courts,  and  majesties, 
and  tlirones,  but  they  are  all  the  shadows  falling  from  the 
buildings  of  this  town  ;  other  towns  have  had  their  battle- 
fields, and  the  war  of  strife  has  raged  through  their  streets, 
and  the  shock  of  war  and  the  Hghtning  of  strife  blazed 
over  then'  fields — aU  the  passions  of  the  battle-field  had  their 
origin  in  this  town  ;  other  towns  have  palaces,  but  there  is 
no  palace  so  beautiful  or  so  brave  as  the  palace  of  this 
town — ^none  with  a  furniture  so  rich,  none  with  glory  so 
brave,  or  great,  or  subduing  ;  I  need  not  say,  it  is  the' town 
of  Mansoul. 

Now,  this  town  lies  open  to  the  Sea — the  wonderful  sea  ; 

(39) 


40  The  Vocation  of  tlie  Preacher. 

the  sea  fioTvs  down  to  it  tkrough  rivers  and  bays  ;  all  its 
wealth,  like  that  of  more  modem  towns,  Hes  in  its  neigh- 
borhood' to  the  sea.  Strange  land  lies  all  aronnd  it,  but 
it  opens  to  the  great  world  to  which  it  belongs  by  ^yq 
ports — the  Cinque  Ports — the  ports  themselves  beautifully 
constructed,  are  yet  as  nothing  to  the  wealth  they  convey. 
All  the  merchandise  of  pictures,  and  of  charming  furni- 
tures ;  and  all  merchandise  of  music,  and  organs,  and  of 
harps  ;  and  all  merchandise  of  spices  and  of  precious 
gums  ;  {^d  all  merchandise  of  clothing  and  of  food,  aU 
come  hither  borne  in  by  the  wondrous  waves  that  flov/  up 
to  the  gates  of  these  ports  of  the  town  of  Mansoul.  ''  Five 
gates,"  said  John  Bunyan,  "  Ear-gate,  Eye-gate,  Nose-gate, 
Mouth-gate,  Feel-gate  ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  Ear- 
gate." 

Preachers  have  to  do  with  Ear-gate.  But  sometimes 
the  people  in  this  town  of  Mansoul  are  all  asleep.  Over 
the  whole  space  there  is  as  the  slumber  of  an  enchanted 
palace  ;  the  people  within  are  wonderful  people,  but  you 
can  do  nothing  with  them  till  they  are  aU  awake.  One  of 
the  first  of  all  conditions  is  to  awaken  the  people  within 
the  tovm  of  Mansoul.  There  is  a  well-known  story  in  the 
histor)^  of  our  country,  of  one  of  our  earhest  kings.  Richard 
I.,  on  his  way  from  the  Holy  Land,  was  taken  captive  and 
imprisoned  in  a  dreary  castle  away  from  his  nation.  At 
last,  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  while  wonder  was  dying 
fast,  and  he  was  perishing  from  the  memory  of  mankind, 
he  was  discovered  in  a  very  strange  manner.  He  had  a 
favorite  minstrel — ^Blondel ;  he  knew  that  his  master  and 
his  king  was  confined  in  some  cell  in  a  castle  among  dreary 
mountain  forests  ;  and  he  travelled  from  one  to  the  other, 
waking  at  the  dungeon  bars  some  well-loved  melodies  from 
his  harp.  At  last,  the  strain  from  the  harp  without  was 
answered  by  the  king  from  within,  down  in  the  dungeon. 
The  song  and  the  harp  of  the  minsti'el  thus  became  the 


Waking  the  People  in  the  Town  of  Ilansoid,  4 1 

means  of  tlie  emancipation  of  the  prince.  Thus  the  king 
regained  his  throne,  and  escaped  from  the  horrors  of  his 
exile,  by  the  stray  and  floating  air  which  had  carelessly 
Wiled  away  his  hours  in  the  camp,  or  m  the  more  light- 
some gaieties  of  the  palace.  All  Europe  was  interested  in 
the  listening  ear  of  the  thi'illed  king  to  the  wild  and  fitful 
melodies  of  the  faithful  bard. 

Thus  the  spuit  of  man  sits  like  a  captive  king  m  a 
dmigeon,  ujitil  the  voice  of  the  divine  music  wakes  echoes 
hitherto  unknown  along  his  prison  house,  and  stirs  him 
with  new  knowledge — ^new  consciousness.  We  have  heard 
of  the  mighty  power  of  music.  Mighty,  too,  is  the  power 
of  a  Divine  word,  when  the  heart  knows  it  and  owns  it  ; 
"then  the  captive  exile  hasteneth  to  be  loosed."  The 
senses  are  the  bars  of  our  prison.  Behind  and  v/ithin 
everybody  there  is  a  soul.  God  can  make  the  words  to 
answer  the  Divine  purpose.  Preaching,  and  all  its  auxil- 
iaries, are  only  useful  to  us  as  they  do  for  the  soul  what 
Blondel  did  for  the  King  Bichard  —  waken  within  him 
memory,  or  hope  ;  rousing  him  to  thoughts  of  a  world 
beyond  his  prison  bars — ^beyond  his  exile  ;  waken  him  to 
effort ;  to  listen  and  to  aspire  ;  and  every  minister  should 
be  a  Blondel,  seeking  for  imprisoned  kings,  contented  with 
their  chaias,  sitting  perhaps  in  despair,  perhaps  in  content- 
ment, ia  their  dungeons,  till  the  magic  chords  stir  then" 
being. 

And  this  is  your  work.  One  of  the  things  I  propose  to 
myself  this  evening  and  the  following,  is  tcf  seek  to  awaken 
the  sleeping  people  in  the  towTi  of  Mansoul.  There  is 
Imagination,  there  is  Memory,  there  is  Thought,  and  there 
is  Attention.  I  suppose  it  can  scarcely  be  said  they  are 
asleep  in  you.  No,  your  very  presence  here  shov/s  that  ia 
a  measure,  at  any  rate,  they  are  awake.  But  you  see  how 
possible  it  is  for  a  portion  of  the  man  to  be  awake,  and 
only  a  portion.      Some  men  are,  after  all,  only  abortive 


42  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher, 

beings,  and  some  men  are  only  sensational  beings.  You 
know  how  readily  the  mind  is  impressed  by  natural  ob- 
jects ;  but  we  cannot  call  this  an  educated,  or  awakened 
mind.  On  the  contrary,  this  mind  in  which  sensibility  is 
awake  and  conscience  and  thought  asleep,  is  most  dan- 
gerously unawakened. 

I  say  therefore,  first,  it  is  everything  to  awaken  mind  ; 
to  stir  the  slumbering  being  within  the  town  of  Mansoul. 
Many  things  may  do  it :  a  conversaiioii  may  do  it — a  icord 
may  do  it — the  shields  of  Mitiades  would  not  allow  The- 
mis hocles  to  sleep  ;  that  is  the  case  with  many  a  young 
man's  heart,  when  thoughts  make  the  young  man  strive  to 
be  noble,  and  to  do  noble  things,  and  to  aspire,  and  to 
put  forth  effort  to  awaken  the  man^  the  soul ;  a  book  may 
do  it  ;  and  this  is  the  first  intention  of  reading  ;  to  bring 
hght  to  the  mind,  as  Hght  comes  in  the  morning  to  awaken 
and  to  bless. 

That  was  a  great  purpose  the  Apostle  Paul  set  before 
himself  in  writing  and  in  speaking — "  To  commend  him- 
self to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God." 
"Why,"  said  a  fi'iend  of  mine  to  a  minister  of  the  very 
narrow  Calvinist  school,  "  Why  wiU  you  not  allow  me  to 
sit  down  with  your  church  at  the  Lord's  Table.  You  know 
me,  you  know  my  character  and  position  in  the  town. 
You  are  aware  that  all  my  views  on  the  doctrines  of  grace 
are  substantially  the  same  as  your  own."  The  narrow 
brother  admitted  all  this.  "  I  know,  I  know,"  he  said,  "  I 
respect  you  and  yoiu"  opinions  highly,  but  somehow  you 
have  not  commended  yourself  to  my  conscience  ;"  that 
was  a  curious  inversion  of  the  Apostle's  words,  "  Com- 
mending ourselves  to  every  man's  conscience."  That  is, 
not  merely  to  be  present  in  the  consciousness,  that  is,  the 
knowledge  of  a  man.  You  know  that  I  am  here — that  is 
consciousness — consciousness  is  knowledge  ;  but  conscience 
is  the  knowledge  a  man  Jias  of  himself.     This  knowledge 


Preliminaries. 


43 


enters  the  soul,  slieds  light  there  ;  wakes  up  the  powers 
within  the  soul  ;  says  to  Thought,  "  Awake  ; "  says  to 
Emotion,  "Awake;"  says  to  Duty,  "Awake."  This  is 
the  value  of  a  book — the  value  of  a  preacher. 

I  shall  take  up  my  Bible  again,  and  Solomon  shall 
preach  to  us.  Listen  to  what  he  says  :  "  Through  dem'e  a 
man,  having  separated  himself,  seeketh  and  intermeddleth 
with  all  wisdom."  Now,  that  is  the  great  condition  of  the 
intellectual  life  ; " — fii'st  the  "  desire  " — desu^e  to  save  souls 
— through  desire,  the  yeammg  for  knowledge  ;  as  the 
same  man  says :  "  If  thou  searchest  for  knowledge  and 
seekest  for  her  as  for  hid  treasure,  thou  shalt  find  her." 
Therefore  it  was  said,  "  The  entrance  of  Thy  word  giveth 
light — it  giveth  light  unto  the  simple."  Intellectual  ad- 
vancement here  is  not  separated  from  the  vMl:  through 
desire, — it  is  a  love  and  a  passion  ;  it  is  also  consecration  ; 
the  man  mii^t  ^eparaie  himself ;  walk  alone  ;  separate  him- 
self not  merely  from  disreputable  companions,  from  idle, 
from  thoughtless  companions ;  I  have  known  young  men 
who  have  lost  the  golden  hours  because  they  gave  them- 
selves, in  their  early  days,  when  work  was  over,  to  the 
mere  insipid  chatterings  of  frivolity.  But  here  is  the  first 
condition,  the  desire,  then  separation,  and  "  intermingling 
with  all  knowledge."  Seize  upon  truth,  it  is  all  before 
you  ;  "  ransack  the  ages  ;  spoil  the  climes."  Your  motive 
must  not  he  vanity.  "  A  fool,"  says  the  wise  man,  "  has 
no  dehght  in  understanding,  but  that  his  heart  may  dis- 
cover itself,''  that  is,  reveal  his  own  vanity.  But  it  is  not 
so  with  the  earnest  student,  the  thoughtful  man  ;  it  is  for 
the  pleasure  of  wisdom  ;  "  seek  her  for  she  is  thy  life  ; " 
"  exalt  her  and  she  shall  promote  thee." 

But  there  must  be  the  desire.  Go  to  the  grocer's,  and 
get  the  best  tea,  give  the  best  price,  mix  it  any  way  ;  but 
what  matters  it  ?  What  makes  a  good  cup  of  tea  ?  Bc/il- 
ing  water.     Your  water  must  hoU,    The  puddiag  may  be 


44  Tlie  Vocation  of  the  Preacher, 

T^ell  made  and  mixed,  but  what  makes  it?  Why,  hoUing 
water.  Now,  this  desh^e  is  the  boihng  water  ;  it  is  of  no 
use  to  have  the  largest  hbrary  and  the  best  boohs  without 
the  boiling  water.  As  the  Psahnist  said,  "  My  heart  boils 
over  with  good  matter."     Ps.  xlv.  1. 

And  I  have  said  to  you  already,  in  effect,  that  whatever 
you  do,  "take  care  of  the  words."  When  you  study  words 
remember  you  are  studying  things.  We  are  constantly 
enriching  our  language  from  the  spoils  of  words ;  and 
while  I  do  think  we  are  not  chary  enough  of  the  intro- 
duction of  new  words,  we  do  not  guard  enough  the  en- 
trance of  words  ;  stiU  there  are  foolish  prejudices  ;  for  in- 
stance, the  words  subjective  and  objective.  WeU,  they  are 
not  so  new  as  they  seem  ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  we  could 
at  all  dispense  with  them.  And,  in  our  language,  they 
remind  us  that  a  period  has  come  when  we  not  only  sepa- 
rate  the  outer  from  the  inner  world,  but  the  knowledge 
which  the  soul  has,  from  the  soul  itseK.  The  subjective  is 
the  optic  lens  upon  which  the  outer  world  is  painted,  while 
the  objective  is  the  outer  world  which  is  painted  on  the 
optic  lens. 

But  while  I  thiok  these  topics  are  not  unimportant,  I 
must  not  yet  dwell  on  them  too  long.  I  may  now  call 
you  to  some  other  immediate  hints  on  the  vocation  of  the 
preacher  ;  nor  shaU  I  be  careful  or  sorry  that  I  strike  dis- 
tinctly again  some  of  the  chords  I  have  just  now  touched. 
It  is  clearly  understood  that  your  work  is  loith  souls,  and 
for  souls,  not  minds  merely,  that  is,  the  region  of  thought ; 
you  are  to  go  deeper  ;  you  are  to  be  fielders  of  that 
"  word  which  separates  the  soul  and  the  spirit,"  that  is, 
between  the  voice  of  the  conscience  and  the  voice  of  the 
mind.  You  are  to  be  the  holders  of  "  that  word  which 
discerns  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart."  If  you 
are  to  be  men  of  power  you  wiU  come  into  immediate  con- 
tact with  the  consciences  of  men  ;  for  this  reason,  many 


The  Test  of  Tears.  45 

have  said,  and  say,  there  is  no  art  of  preaching.  How  rid- 
iculous to  say  this,  for  every  trade,  for  every  profession, 
there  is  a  distinct  art  ;  and  even  the  very  meanest,  the 
shoemaker  and  the  tailor,  is  ap]3renticed  to  learn  his  trade. 
You  are  here  to  learn  to  preach.  If  I  have  ever  had  a 
quarrel  with  the  system  of  the  coUege,  it  is  that,  for  the 
most  part,  it  has  prepared  for  the  study,  and  not  for  the 
pulpit ;  it  has  made  schoolmasters,  not  ministers  ;  hke 
some,  of  whom  a  watty  German,  Eichtcr,  speaks,  who  had 
"learned  the  Paternoster  in  every  tongue,  "but  never 
prayed  with  it  ; "  so  some  mhiisters  have  attained  almost 
eveiy  conceivable  kind  of  knowledge,  but  never  preached 
with  it.  I  do  not  speak  to  you  as  if  I  supposed  your 
powers  were  above  the  average,  and,  in  any  case,  there- 
fore, I  shall  say,  Culture,  Culture,  Culture.  Pray,  read, 
and  marshal  your  ideas ;  put  them  in  order.  It  is 
knowledge — it  is  more  than  knowledge,  it  is  wisdom — 
which  enables  the  preacher  to  tell  upon  his  hearers.  It 
has  been  weU  said  that  hearers  have  often  neither  the 
skill  nor  the  wiU  to  take  home  to  themselves  general  dis- 
courses, therefore  the  preacher  must  make  the  apphcation 
himself;  as  Nathan,  "Thou  art  the  man."  Bridges  re- 
marks on  Ecclesiastes  xii.  2,  "  The  goads  and  the  nails, 
i.e.,  the  words  of  the  wise,  must  not  be  laid  by  as  if  the 
posts  would  knock  them  in,  but  must  be  fastened  by  the 
masters  of  assembhes.".  This  must  be  your  study — this  is 
your  vocation,  to  reach  the  conscience.  This  is  power  in 
preaching  ;  but  it  needs  deep  experience  and  prayer,  and  a 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  for  truth  and  for  power  with 
souls.  I  have  no  doubt  that  a  far  more  efficient  test  than 
the  loudest  acclamatioil  and  applause,  is  the  test  of  tears, 
St.  Augustine,  in  his  Art  of  Preaching,  teUs  us  that  he 
undertook  to  dissuade  the  people  of  one  of  those  ancient 
cities,  Cesaroca,  fi'om  a  barbarous  annual  practice  of  civil 
conflict,  in  which  neighbors,  and  even  sons,  and  fathers. 


46  The  VocMion  of  the  Preacher. 

and  brothers  divided  themselves  into  two  parties,  to  fight 
at  particular  seasons  of  the  year,  each  one  kilhng  whom 
he  could.     He  says  : 

I  availed  myself,  as  far  as  possible,  of  the  grand  in  eloquence, 
in  order  that  I  might  tear  away  and  banish  from  their  customs 
and  their  hearts  this  inveterate  evil ;  but  I  did  not  think  I  had 
accomplished  anything  so  long  as  I  heard  their  acclamations 
only — until  I  saw  them  in  tears.  Their  acclamations  showed  me 
that  they  were  taught  and  delighted ;  but  their  tears  showed  me 
that  they  were  persuaded ;  and  when  I  saw  their  tears,  I  felt 
that  the  savage  custom,  which  had  been  handed  down  from  one 
father's  grandfather's  ancestor  to  another,  would  be  subdued, 
and  that,  too,  before  I  was  authorized  to  feel  so  by  the  thing  it- 
self. Soon  after,  having  closed  my  discourse,  I  turned  to  give 
thanks  to  God — and,  lo  !  Christ  being  propitious,  eight  years 
and  more  have  elapsed  since  anything  of  the  kind  has  been  at- 
tempted. Many  other  things  have  occurred  in  my  experience, 
from  which  I  have  learned  that  those  who  have  been  in  any 
measure  affected  by  the  grand  in  a  wise  display  of  eloquence, 
show  it  by  sighs  rather  than  by  clamor,  sometimes  by  sobbing, 
and  finally  by  a  change  of  life. 

This  guides  us  to  the  true  vocation  of  the  preacher.  We 
read  of  an  ancient  father  who  wept  at  the  applause  given 
to  his  sermons  ;  he  felt  that  his  words  had  not  gone  deep 
enough.  "  Would  to  God,"  said  he,  "  they  had  gone  away 
silent  and  thoughtful."  Well  says  Bridges,*  "We  must 
preach  to  our  people,  as  weU  as  hefcn^e  them ;"  and  says 
Eobert  Hall,  "  The  conscience  of  the  audience  should  feel 
the  hand  of  the  preacher  searching  it,  and  every  individual 
should  know  where  to  class  himself."  Ourspmt  in  preach- 
ing should  be,  "I  have  a  message  unto  tliee"  If,  as  we 
walk  along,  we  hear  a  cry  of  fire,  we  feel  an  uneasy  ten- 
dency to  look  or  run  every  way  ;  it  is  different  if  any  one 

*  See  the  admirable  and  almost  exhaustive  work  On  tlic  Christian 
Ministry,    By  Rev.  Charles  Bridges,  M.A. 


The  Two  Audiences. 


47 


touches  us  on  the  shoulder  and  says,  "  Your  house  is  on 
fire."  So  great  is  the  difference  between  the  preaching 
which  deals  in  generals,  and  that  which,  coming  home  to 
close  particulars,  arrests  the  soul. 

But  you  will  not  suppose  that  all  this,  which  is  the  very 
highest  order  of  speech  and  eloquence,  can  be  attained 
without  culture — without  deep  knowledge  of  the  ways  and 
springs  of  the  human  soul  ;  or  fancy  that  the  power  to  do 
this  consists  merely  in  action  or  vehemence  ;  mistaking,  as 
the  editor  of  Vinet*  says,  ^'  persinration  for  inspiration  ;"  or 
that  the  work  Is  done  by  preaching  to  the  nerves,  instead 
of  to  consciences  and  souls.  You  see  the  vocation  of  the 
preacher  is  ^yoiuer,  religious  power.  Suppose,  then,  we  drop 
the  word  eloquence,  as  an  ambition  to  which  you  strive  to 
attain  ;  perhaps  the  probability  is,  that  as*  that  word  is  under- 
stood, you  are  not  eloquent,  and  never  will  be  eloquent.  I 
believe  we  think  of  eloquence  too  much  ;  what,  then,  should 
you  care  if  your  own  natures  are  divinely  touched  and 
estabhshed  ? — you  can  touchy  you  can  teachf  you  can  instruct 
*'  I  often  repeat  to  myself,"  says  Keinhardt,  "  that,  after  all, 
the  Christian  preacher  is  more  an  instructor  than  an  ora- 
tor." Of  course.  Is  not  this  the  apostolic  designation, 
"  Apt  to  teach"  ?  A  preacher  may  be  a  perfect,  a  finished, 
and  most  successful  orator,  and  yet  miss  every  purpose  and 
end,  and  almost  every  art  of  the  Christian  ministry ;  but 
the  instructor,  the  teacher,  must  be  *'  thoroughly  furnished" 
himself,  and  he  will  furnish  the  minds  of  some,  even  if  he 
fails  to  touch  their  souls. 

All  persons  accustomed  to  lecturing  or  pubhc  speaking, 
will  have  noticed  that,  in  the  course  of  their  wanderings, 
they  meet  with  two  audiences.     There  is  a  plain,  unedu- 

*  Few  works  will  serve  the  really  tliouglitful  student  of  preach- 
ing more  than  ITomiletics,  or  the  Theory  of  Preaching.  By  Alexan- 
der Vinet,  excellently  translated  and  admirably  annotated  and 
edited  by  Rev.  A.  Faussett,  M.A. 


48  Tlie  Vocation  of  the  P readier. 

cated  audience,  unpolished,  but  unconventionaiized,  to 
whom,  if  you  would  speak,  ^^ou  must  present  your  speech 
in  sharp,  short,  fiery  sentences  ;  in  words  that  flash  in- 
stantly, and  in  the  flash  convey  and  reveal.  We  have  httle 
of  this  order  of  eloquence  now  ;  but  where  it  is,  and  where 
it  meets  its  proper  audience,  it  Mndles,  till  the  whole  people 
are  borne  along  on  the  blaze  and  the  passion  of  it.  The 
feehngs  of  the  people  become  ungovernable  ;  they  are 
clasped  and  borne  along  by  iiTepressible  emotion ;  they 
shout,  they  cheer.  The  building  in  whiah  the  oration  rings, 
shakes  with  the  peal  of  rapture  and  of  praise.  True,  after 
it  is  all  over,  you  meditate  that  the  people  who  yielded  them- 
selves to  the  fervor  of  i\nB  furore  were  a  simple  kind  of  folk, 
much  more  accustomed  to  follow  their  feehngs  than  to  in- 
quire for  the  verdicts  of  cultured  understandings  ;  but  then, 
the  orator  probably  reflected  to  himself,  that  the  strength 
of  his  speech  also  was  not  in  his  culture,  but  in  his  soul ; 
that  he  and  his  audience  captivated  each  other  by  their 
possession  of  the  over-soul  :  they  took  fire  not  by  theu' 
studied  art,  but  by  their  great  sympathies  ;  and  the  voice 
of  the  orator,  as  it  rose  aloft,  was  hke  a  wind  amidst  the 
trees,  or  sweeping  dov/n  the  dark  hills — very  fine,  mdeed, 
but  dej)endent,  too,  upon  the  trees  and  the  mountains  :  the 
wind  had  a  voice  in  itself,  but  the  trees  and  mountains 
awakened  the  echo. 

There  is  another  speaker,  and  there  is  another  audience  ; 
an  audience  intensely,  too  intensely,  capable  of  appreciating, 
but  incapable  of  applauding.  The  speaker  who  would  suc- 
ceed, must  cut  his  sentences  Hke  cameos,  and  work  all  the 
separate  parts  of  his  figures  together,  till  they  have  the  ex- 
quisiteness  of  mosaics.  He  makes  a  shp  of  one  word  :  it 
is  fatal  to  him  in  the  estimation  of  his  audience.  His 
audience  listens  with  a  fine,  hesitating,  critical  ear,  much 
more  pleased  with  the  sense  of  propriety  than  the  sense  of 
power.     It  never  yields  itscK  until  it  is  taken  possession  of. 


Whe?'e  is  the  Preaclier''s  Model  f        49 

and  conventionalism  is  a  fine  antidote  to  the  being  taken 
possession  of.  This  audience  appreciates  clever  reading 
more  than  lofty  passion,  and  clear  hnes  more  than  cloudy 
and  mystic  glories.  These  two  audiences,  ahve  now  in  our 
age,  and  usually  to  be  found  in  many  past  ages,  sufficiently 
represent  the  two  stages  of  poetry,  or  of  oratory  ;  poetry 
in  its  primeval  age — the  age  before  the  reign  of  Horace  and 
of  art,  when,  in  fact,  there  is  no  art  of  poetry  ;  for  poetry, 
of  course,  precedes  the  art,  even  as  the  social  man  precedes 
law  and  society — and  poetry  in  the  artist  age,  when  the 
sensations  are  placed  in  the  cabinet,  and  kept,  and  turned 
over,  and  when  mighty  heavings  of  heart  give  place  to 
pretty  little  pictures,  and  the  rapture  and  the  passion  are 
succeeded  by  a  fine  eye  for  critical  analysis  ;  and  the  power 
to  review  a  fine  poem,  and  to  demonstrate  its  deficiencies, 
is  even  far  more  than  to  write  it  In  the  poetry  of  Pales- 
tine, in  Hebrew  poetry,  we  are  brought  into  the  presence 
of  the  first  of  these  two  ;  and  if  such  a  plain  illustration  as 
that  we  have  used  may  serve,  then  let  it  serve  to  illustrate 
the  poetry  of  Judea  and  the  poetry  of  Greece,  after  the  age 
of  Homer,  the  poetry  of  passion  and  of  truth,  and  the 
poetry  of  culture  and  of  form.  The  storm-lit  and  phos- 
phorescent sea  may  image  to  us  the  one  ;  the  clear,  calm, 
cold,  glacial  mountaia,  visited  all  night  by  troops  of  stars, 
may  seem  to  us  the  type  of  the  other.  The  first,  a  grand, 
sonorous,  and  inadjectived  world,  where  everything  is  nom- 
inative and  intense  in  action  ;  a  speculative  lens  before 
which  all  things  turn  into  the  qualities  of  bodies,  may  seem 
to  us  a  type  of  the  last. 

Where  is  the  model  of  the  vocation  of  the  preacher  — 
where  ?  Why,  where  should  it  be,  but  in  the  Book  whidi  is 
to  be  to  the  Christian  preacher  —  text,  doctrine,  creed,  life, 
inspiration,  consolation,  history,  biography  —  everything? 
There  are  some  things  in  the  manners  and  customs  of  old 
Palestine,  with  reference  to  its  prophets,  you  will  have  to 
3 


^o  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

leave  behind ;  but  for  your  work,  I  say  to  you,  enter  the 
schools  of  the  ancient  prophets.  In  the  ancient  prophet- 
man,  your  example  is  very  greatly  there.  In  Dean  Stan- 
ley's History  of  the  Jewish  Church,  this  fact  is  well  brought 
out.  He  attempts  to  bring  before  us  the  schools  of  the 
prophets,  and  the  power  of  the  prophet  as  a  commanding 
teacher  and  leader  of  the  people.  He  brings  out,  with 
considerable  distinctness  and  force,  the  prophetic  insight 
into  the  human  heart ;  the  close  connection  of  the  prophet 
with  the  thoughts,  hearts,  and  consciences  of  men  ;  the 
consciousness  of  the  presence  of  God  ;  the  teaching  of  the 
future,  constantly  speaking  of  things  to  come  ;  the  power 
of  the  future  both  for  the  Church  and  the  individual. 
"  The  whole  prophetic  teaching  stakes  itself  on  the  issue 
that  all  will  go  well  with  us  when  once  we  turn.  The 
future  is  everything,  the  past  is  nothing.  The  turning,  the 
change,  the  fixing  our  faces  in  the  right  instead  of  the 
wrong  direction,  this  is  the  difficulty,  the  crisis  of  hfe  ;  but 
this  done,  then,  cried  the  prophet,  '  Though  your  sins  be  as 
scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow.'  '  He  will  turn 
again.  He  will  have  compassion  upon  us  ;  He  will  subdue 
our  iniquities  ;  and  thou  wilt  cast  all  their  sins  into  the 
depths  of  the  sea.' "    Dean  Stanley  says  : — 

O  if  the  spirit  of  our  profession,  of  our  order,  of  our  body, 
were  the  spirit,  or  anything  like  the  spirit,  of  the  ancient 
prophets !  if  with  us,  truth,  charity,  justice,  fairness  to  opj)o- 
nents,  were  a  passion,  a  doctrine,  a  point  of  honor,  to  be  upheld, 
through  good  report  and  evil,  with  the  same  energy  as  that 
with  which  we  uphold  our  position,  our  opinions,  our  interpre- 
tations, our  partnerships !  A  distinguished  prelate  has  well 
said,  "  It  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world  whether  we  put 
the  duty  of  Truth  in  the  first  place  or  in  the  second  place." 
Yes !  that  is  exactly  the  difference  between  the  spirit  of  the 
world  and  that  of  the  Bible.  The  spirit  of  the  world  asks, 
Jvrsty  "Is  it  safe?   is  it  jnous  ? "  secondly,  "Is  it  true?"    The 


Nationalihj  of  ike  Hebrew  Prophet.       ^  i 

spirit  of  the  prophets  asks,  fir^t^  "  Is  it  true  ?  "  secondly^  "  Is  it 
safe?"  The  spirit  of  the  worid  asks,^rs^,  "Is  it  prudent?" 
secondly^  "  Is  it  right  ?  "  The  spirit  of  the  prophets  asks,  Jtr^st^ 
"  Is  it  right  ?  "  8econdly^  "  Is  it  prudent  ? "  It  is  not  that  they 
and  we  hold  different  doctrines  on  these  matters,  but  that  we 
hold  them  in  different  proportions.  What  they  put  first,  we  put 
second ;  what  we  put  second,  they  put  first.  The  religious 
energy  which  we  reserve  for  objects  of  temporary  and  second- 
ary importance,  they  reserved  for  objects  of  eternal  and  primary 
importance.  When  Ambrose  closed  the  doors  of  the  church,  of 
Milan  against  the  blood-stained  hands  of  the  devout  Theodo- 
sius,  he  acted  in  the  spirit  of  a  proi)het.  When  Ken,  in  spite 
of  his  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  rebuked  Charles 
II.  on  his  death-bed  for  his  long  unrepented  vices,  those  who 
stood  by  were  justly  reminded  of  the  ancient  j)rophets.  When 
Savonarola,  at  Florence,  threw  the  whole  energy  of  his  re- 
ligious zeal  into  burning  indignation  against  the  sins  of  the 
city,  high  and  low,  his  sermons  read  more  like  Hebrew  prophe- 
cies than  modern  homilies.* 

And  I  will  touch  upon  one  very  powerful  source  of  inspi- 
ration through  the  whole  Jewish  prophet-host — ^it  was  na- 
tional ;  they  saw,  they  felt  God  in  their  history.  I  am 
amazed  that  this  is  not  more  frequently,  to  us,  inspiration 
in  our  pulpit.  I  wonder  much,  and  often  seem  to  hear, 
the  old  prophet  saying  to  us  :  "  What  iniquity  have  your 
fathers  foimd  in  me,  saith  the  Lord."  Turn,  for  contrast, 
to  the  Hebrew  pages.  What  stories  of  battles !  the  harp 
of  Deborah,  and  the  hand  of  Barak ;  when  the  storm  of 
sleet  and  hail  burst  over  the  Canaanites  ;  and  the  rains  de- 
scended, and  the  winds  blew,  and  the  flood  and  the  torrent 
swept  them  away.  What  hero  in  uninspired  story  reaches 
the  dimensions  of  Gideon,  the  victor  over  Zebah  and  Zal- 
munnah?  The  slirill  blasts  of  those  trumpets,  the  crash 
of  those  pitchers  ?  How  the  tradition  stirs  us  now !  One 
of  the  most  glowing  and  glorious  enchantments  of  Hebrew 

^Lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church,  Vol. !.,  pp.  41,  452. 


^2  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

poetry  is  its  nationality.  The  surge  of  Hebrew  song 
brought  on  every  wave  the  thought,  "God  is  with  us." 
This,  in  all  ages,  gave  the  ecstasy  and  passion  to  their 
mighty  tones  of  triumph.  And  how,  as  they  all  sang,  the 
thought  of  the  God  who  called  them  and  sanctified  them, 
gave  the  roll  and  the  rush  of  melody !  It  must  be  admit- 
ted, there  have  been  no  other  such  national  lyrics.  "  God 
save  the  Queen,"  and  "  Rule  Britannia,"  awaken  thrillings 
and  tinglings  of  blood  and  soul ;  but  they  are  poor  affairs 
compared  with  the  national  songs  of  Judea  ;  and  in  our 
national  songs  the  music  is  far  finer  than  the  words.  We 
have  never  set  our  national  incident  to  music.  We  are 
poor  in  patriotic  songs.  Even  the  French,  perhaps,  exceed 
us  in  this ;  and  The  Marseillaise  tingles  and  kindles  even 
more  than  "  Ye  Mariners  of  England."  In  Judea  the  na- 
tional history  was  well  known,  was  burnt  into  the  hearts  of 
the  people.  In  a  very  tame  way,  I  fancy,  our  liistory  is 
apprehended.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  well-known,  perhaps 
the  best  known,  national  incident,  the  destruction  of  the 
Armada,  the  Spanish  Armada,  the  Invincible  Armada  ;  how 
differently  has  Macaulay  recited  the  story  to  the  way  in 
which  we  can  conceive  it  recited  by  some  ancient  Hebrew 
in  a  similar,  instance.  Our  poet  dwells,  indeed,  on  the 
mustering  of  the  nation  ;  btlt  the  true  poem  is  left  unsung. 
We  have  the  gathering  of  the  people,  not  the  scattering  of 
the  foe.  There  is  very  much  in  that  projected  invasion 
which  reminds  us  of  the  invasion  of  Israel  by  Sisera  ;  and 
many  of  the  words  of  that  glorious  song  of  Deborah  might 
weU  befit  our  case.  It  is  quite  wonderful  what  a  propensity 
there  has  been  in  tyrants,  from  time  immemorial,  to  reckon 
their  chickens  before  they  were  hatched  ;  as  the  mother  of 
Sisera  sang,  **  Have  they  not  sped  ?  have  they  not  divided 
the  prey  ;  to  every  man  a  damsel  or  two  ;  to  Sisera  a  prey 
of  divers  colors,  a  prey  of  divers  colors  of  needlework,  of 
divers  colors  of  needlework  on  both  sides,  meet  for  the 


Our  Preachers  sliould  be  National. 


S3 


necks  of  them  that  take  the  spoil  ? "  We  wonder  how  a 
Hebrew  would  have  chanted  the  story  of  those  nnach  mis- 
guided asses,  the  captains  and  chief  governors  of  that  most 
imperial  ass  that  ever  was,  Philip  II.,  who  had  prepared 
his  armada  as  a  gorgeous  flotilla,  for  a  very  festival  of  con- 
quest :  fitting  out  his  large  fleet  vnth  soldiers  and  inquisi- 
tors, who  were  to  murder  and  to  havoc  in  the  streets  of 
London,  and  make  the  sack  of  Antwerp  pale.  Alas  !  they 
calculated  badly.  London  w^as  all  before  their  anxious 
eyes.  There  was  velvet,  and  gold,  and  baggage,  for  the  tii- 
umph  ;  Hghts  and  torches  for  the  illumination,  lolwn  Lon- 
don should  be  sacked.  Every  captain  had  received  some 
gift  from  the  prince  to  make  himseK  brave  ;  and  lances  so 
gorgeous  —  'twas  a  preparation  for  a  triumph,  not  for  a 
war.  And  then  came  that  night,  and  the  sob  of  the  storm, 
and  the  drip  of  the  mysterious  oars,  and  the  devil-ships  of 
GianibeUi,  and  the  flame,  and  the  mist,  and  the  tempest  ;* 
and  so  —  but  we  know  the  rest  :  only,  what  would  an 
Israelite  have  said  over  such  a  victory  ?  —  "  Thou  breakest 
the  ships  of  Tarshish  with  an  east  wind." 

These  are  the  things  in  a  nation's  history  which  make  a 
people  look  up.  These  are  the  foundations  of  national 
pride  and  exultation.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  in  many 
a  lonely  Methodist  chapel,  in  many  a  far-away  village  cot- 
tage, the  sentiment,  God  for  England,  is  felt  just  as  truly, 
and  perhaps  as  profoundly,  as  in  the  hearts  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew.  But  these  things  have  not  entered  into  the  text- 
ure of  our  national  poetry.  We  have  very  httle  of  what 
may  be  called  national  poetry,  and  what  we  have  does  not 
ring  with  the  grand  sentiment  of  "  God  is  with  us,"  the 
perpetual  sentiment  of  Hebrewism.  Does  this  arise,  as 
some  have  said,  from  the  fact  that  Christianity  disclaims 
patriotism  ?  I  am  disposed  in  part  to  admit  this  ;  that  no 
land  ever  has  been  and  ever  can  be  what  Palestine  was  to 
the  Jew  ;  and  hence,  too,  while  he  had  no  epic  poet,  every- 


^4  Tlie  Vocation  of  the  Preaclier. 

thing  in  his  land  became  epical,  and  as  I  have  said  and 
seen,  all  things  of  institution  and  of  scenery  became  greatly 
represented. 

Our  history  has  incidents  as  glowing  and  marvellous  ; 
but  have  we  the  heart  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  to  recite  the 
story  ?  Why,  it  is  in  the  memory  of  men  living  now,  and 
here,  how  Napoleon  I.  spread  his  mighty  camp  along  the 
heights  of  Boulogne,  where  a  hundred  thousand  men  waited 
for  the  moment  when,  beneath  the  leadership  of  the  First 
Consul,  they  were  to  spring  on  England  —  those  prepara- 
tions were  vast  —  and  fifty  thousand  men  spread  along  the 
coast  from  Brest  to  Antwerp.  "  Let  us  be  masters  of  the 
Channel,"  said  Napoleon,  "  for  six  hours,  and  we  are  mas- 
ters of  the  'world.'"  Also  the  master  of  the  French 
Mint  received  orders  to  strike  a  medal  commemorating  the 
conquest  —  and  although  the  die  had  to  be  broken,  there 
^are  three  copies  taken  ;  two  are  in  France  and  one  in 
England  —  the  Emperor  crowned  with  laurel,  and  the  in- 
scription in  French,  "London  taken,  1804."  But  there 
was  One  sitting  in  the  heavens  who  laughed  :  the  Lord 
had  them  in  derision.  "  He  spoke  unto  them  in  His  wrath, 
and  vexed  them  in  His  sore  displeasure  ; "  for,  alas,  alas  1 
Admiral  La  Touche  TreviUe,  having  received  orders  to  put 
to  sea,  he  alone  knowing  the  destiny  of  the  fleet,  fell  sick, 
poor  man,  and  died  just  then  ;  and  there  was  no  head  to 
direct,  and  no  hand  to  strike,  and  the  thing  had  to  be  post- 
poned. But  Napoleon,  Emperor  Napoleon,  did  not  give 
up  ;  in  1805  he  was  waiting  still  in  Boulogne !  London 
was  not  taken,  to  be  sure,  in  1804,  but  it  might  be  in  1805. 
He  chmbed  the  heights,  again  and  again,  and  waited  for 
the  junction  of  the  fleets  ;  but  he  strained  his  eyes  in 
vain  :  his  admirals  blundered,  and  so  that  fleet  which  was 
to  have  taken  London,  while  Napoleon  supposed  it  hasten- 
ing to  Brest,  was  flying  to  Cadiz,  there  to  meet  with  Nelson 
at  Trafalgar ;  and  so, — in  fact  London  was   not  taken. 


Tlie  Preaching  of  Henry  Smith.         ^^ 

But  what  would  an  ancient  Hebrew  have  said  ?  He  would 
have  said,  "  As  we  have  Jieard,  so  have  we  seen : "  "  God 
is  known  in  her  palaces  for  a  refuge.  For,  lo,  the  kings 
were  assembled,  they  passed  by  together.  They  saw  it, 
and  so  they  marvelled ;  they  were  troubled,  and  hasted 
away."  "We  have  thought  of  Thy  loving  kindness,  O 
God,  in  the  midst  of  thy  temple."  He  would  have  sung 
as  Deborah  sang,  "So  let  all  thine  enemies  perish,  O  Lord  : 
but  let  them  that  love  Thee  be  as  the  sun  when  he  goeth 
forth  in  his  might." 

And  fire  your  spirits  by  the  consideration  of  the  Hves  and 
^vritings  of  those  men  who  have  eminently  illustrated  the 
vocation  of  the  preacher.  I  am  sorry  I  am  unable  to  point 
you  to  a  cheap  edition  of  the  sermons  of  Heney  Smith  ;* 
he  was  one  of  the  early  Puritans  —  one  of  the  reign  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  mentioned  by  Marsden,  with  Udall 
and  Penry ;  he  was,  by  the  hints  of  his  memoriahst,  old 
Thomas  Fuller,  only  saved  from  their  doom  by  the  special 
protection  of  Lord  Burleigh,  accorded  to  him,  no  doubt, 
from  his  family  ties  with  a  large  baronial  family  in  Leices- 
tershire. Udall  and  Penry  were  of  more  worthless  extrac- 
tion ;  and,  therefore,  fitting  food  for  the  gaUows  and  the 
gaol.  But  Henry  Smith  was  of  the  very  Praetorian  band 
of  Puritans  ;  he  ran  a  brief  course  of  faithfulness,  and  his 
words  ran  very  nimbly.  I  apprehend  few  of  the  Puritans 
of  that  age  had,  in  so  eminent  a  degTee,  the  blessing  of 
Napthali.  "He  was  a  hind  let  loose,  and  he  gave  goodly 
words."  BCis  was  specially  the  eloquence  that  "makes 
straight  paths  for  its  feet."  No  knotty  or  perplexed  ques- 
tion, or  discussion,  could  ever  induce  him  to  turn  aside. 
When  the  Strand  was  a  wide  street  to  that  we  see  it  now, 
and  St.  Clement  Danes  a  very  different  church,  it  was 
thronged  to  listen  to  the  intense  earnestness  of  this  youth- 

*  There  is  now  an  excellent  edition,  published  by  Mr.  Nichol,  in 
the  "  Library  of  Standard  Puritan  Divines.'" 


^6  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

fill  Puritan,  for  he  died  young.  Let  me  read  to  you  some 
illustrations  of  the  method  he  adopted  in  dealing  with  the 
conscience,  and  pressing  Scripture  home  upon  it.  Thus  he 
exclaims  on  the  text — Many  are  the  afflictions  of  the  right' 
eons,  but  the  Lord  delivereth  him  out  of  them  all : — 

This  is  the  anchor  of  the  righteous;  as  he  looks  upon  his 
troubles,  the  promise  cometh  in  like  a  messenger  from  Christ, 
(while  he  is  praying  and  weeping)  and  saith,  The  Lord  will  de- 
liver thee  out  of  all.  Then  he  resolveth  like  Nehemiah,  and 
saith,  Shall  such  a  man  as  I  fly?  Shall  such  a  man  as  I  recant  ? 
If  I  be  faint  in  the  day  of  adversity,  Solomon  saith,  "Thy 
strength  is  small ;  "  as  if  he  should  say,  I  was  never  strong,  but 
did  counterfeit  like  Demas.  If  I  want  comfort  in  trouble,  Solo- 
mon saith,  "  A  good  conscience  is  a  continual  feast."  As  if  he 
should  say,  that  I  have  not  a  good  conscience,  if  I  have  not  com- 
fort in  the  Cross.  Therefore,  I  will  wait  the  Lord's  leisure,  be- 
cause Essay  saith.  Faith  maketh  no  haste.  I  will  not  break  his 
bands ;  because,  then,  I  am  like  the  heathen.  I  will  not  flatter 
the  judge  ;  because  Solomon  saith  it  is  in  vain.  I  will  not  be- 
tray the  cause ;  because  God  hath  appointed  it  to  try  me.  I 
will  not  offend  my  brethren  ;  because  Paul  had  rather  die  than 
do  so.  I  will  not  charge  my  conscience ;  because  it  can  vex  me 
more  than  their  bands.  I  will  not  turn  from  my  profession ;  be- 
cause I  learned  it  of  God,  and  vowed  to  leave  all  for  it,  in  the 
day  that  I  was  baptized  a  Christian.  Though  my  friends  tempt 
me,  like  Job's  wife;  though  my  flesh  flatter  me,  like  Eve; 
though  my  persecutors  would  bribe  me,  like  Balaac;  though 
those  which  suffer  with  me  should  revolt  for  fear,  yet  I  will  be  as 
Joshua,  which  stood  alone ;  and  as  Elkana  was  instead  of  chil- 
dren to  Hannah,  so  Christ  shall  be  instead  of  comfort,  instead  of 
wealth,  and  health,  and  liberty  to  me.  For  many  were  the 
troubles  of  Joseph ;  and  the  Lord  delivered  him  out  of  all : 
many  were  the  troubles  of  Abraham,  and  the  Lord  delivered 
him  out  of  all :  many  were  the  troubles  of  David,  and  the  Lord 
delivered  him  out  of  all :  many  were  the  troubles  of  Job,  and 
the  Lord  delivered  him  out  of  all ;  therefore,  he  can  deliver  me 
out  of  all.     But  if  he  do  not,  (saith  Sidrach,  Misaac,  and  Abed- 


Tlie  Preaching  of  Henry  Smith.         ^n 

nego)  yet  we  will  not  do  evil  to  escape  danger :  because  Christ 
hath  sufiered  more  for  us.  Therefore,  if  I  perish,  I  perish, 
saith  Hester.  She  was  content  that  her  life  should  perish :  but 
if  my  purse  suffer,  my  money  doth  but  perish :  if  my  body  be 
imprisoned,  my  pleasures  do  but  perish  :  and  who  can  tell  when 
he  hath  suffered  that  which  is  appointed  ?  Therefore,  God 
saith,  When  I  see  convenient  time,  I  will  execute  judgment.  Not 
when  thou  dost  think  it  a  convenient  time.  Therefore,  saith 
David  to  the  Lord,  In  thee  do  1  trust  all  the  day :  that  is,  if  He 
come  not  in  the  morning.  He  will  come  at  noon ;  if  He  come 
not  at  noon.  He  will  come  at  night ;  at  one  hour  of  the  day  He 
will  deliver  me  :  and  then,  as  the  calm  was  greater  after  the 
tempest  than  it  was  before,  so  my  joy  shall  be  sweeter  after  tears 
than  it  was  before.  The  remembrance  of  Babylon  will  make  us 
sing  more  joyful  in  Sion. 

Thus  Moses  describeth  the  journey  of  the  righteous,  as  if  they 
should  go  thorow  the  sea,  and  wilderness,  as  the  Israelites  went 
to  Canaan.  Look  not  for  ease  nor  pleasure  in  your  way,  but  for 
beasts,  and  serpents,  and  thieves  :  until  you  be  past  the  wilder- 
ness, all  is  strait,  and  dark,  and  fearful ;  but  as  soon  as  you  are 
thorow  the  narrow  gate,  all  is  large,  and  goodly,  and  pleasant, 
as  if  you  were  in  Paradise.  Seeing,  then,  your  kingdom  is  not 
here,  look  not  for  a  golden  life  in  an  iron  world  ;  but  lemember 
that  Lazarus  doth  not  mourn  in  heaven,  though  he  suffered  pains 
on  earth  ;  but  the  glutton  mourneth  in  hell,  that  stayed  not  for 
the  pleasures  of  heaven.  To  which  pleasures  the  Lord  Jesus 
bring  us,  when  this  cloud  of  trouble  is  blown  over  us.    Amen. 

Again,  from  the  text,  Almost  thou  persuadest  me  to  be  a 
Christian. 

Is  this  altogether  like  Paul  or  like  Festus  ?  Not  at  all.  Now, 
if  we  be  almost  Christians,  let  us  see  what  it  is  to  be  almost  a 
Christian.  Almost  a  son,  is  a  bastard;  almost  sweet,  is  unsa- 
vory ;  almost  hot  is  lukewarm,  which  God  spueth  out  of  His 
mouth,  Pev.  iii.  16.  So  almost  a  Christian,  is  not  a  Christian, 
but  that  which  God  spueth  out  of  His  mouth.  A  Christian  al- 
most is  like  a  woman  which  dieth  in  travail ;  almost  she  brought 
forth  a  son,  but  that  almost  killed  the  mother  and  the  son  too. 
3* 


r8  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

Almost  a  Christian^  is  like  Jeroboam,  -wMch  said,  "7^5  is  too  far 
to  go  to  Jerusalem  to  icorship^^''  and  therefore  cliose  rather  to  wor- 
ship calves  at  home. 

Almost  a  Christian  is  like  Micah,  which  thought  himself  re- 
ligious enough,  because  he  had  gotten  a  priest  into  his  house. 
Almost  a  Christian  is  like  theEphraimites,  which  could  not  pro- 
nounce Shibboleth,  but  Sibboleth.  Almost  a  Christian  is  like  An- 
anias, which  brought  a  part,  but  left  a  part  behind.  Almost  a 
Christian  is  like  Eli's  sons,  which  polled  the  sacrifices ;  like  the 
fig  tree,  which  deceived  Christ  with  leaves ;  like  the  virgins, 
which  carried  lamps  without  oil ;  like  the  willing  unwilling  son, 
which  said  he  would  come  and  would  not.  What  is  it  to  be 
born  almost.  If  the  new  man  be  born  almost^  he  is  not  born. 
What  is  it  to  be  married  almost  into  Christ  ?  He  which  is  mar- 
ried but  almost  is  not  married.  What  is  it  to  oflfer  sacrifice 
almost  ?  The  sacrifice  must  be  killed,  or  ever  it  can  be  sacri- 
ficed. He  which  gives  almost^  gives  not,  but  denieth.  He 
which  believeth  almost^  believeth  not,  but  doubteth.  Can  the 
door  which  is  but  almost  shut  keep  out  the  thief?  Can  the  cup 
which  is  but  almost  whole  hold  any  wine  ?  Can  the  ship  which 
is  but  almost  sound  keep  out  water  ?  The  soldier  which  dotli 
but  almost  fight,  is  a  cow^ard.  The  physician  which  doth  but 
almost  cure,  is  a  slubberer.  The  servant  which  doth  but  almost 
labor,  is  a  loiterer.  I  cannot  tell  what  to  make  of  these  defec- 
tives, nor  where  to  place  them,  nor  unto  w^hat  to  liken  them. 
They  are  liJce  unto  children  which  sit  in  the  marl^et-place,  where 
there  is  mourning  and  piping^  and  they  neither  weep  nor  dance^  but 
keep  a  note  between  them  both ;  they  weep  almost.,  and  dance 
almost,  Believest  thou  almost  ?  Be  it  unto  thee  (saith  Christ) 
as  thou  lelicvest.  Therefore,  if  thou  believest,  thou  shalt  be 
saved  —  if  thou  believest  almost.^  thou  shalt  be  saved  almost. 
As  when  a  pardon  comes  while  the  thief  hangs  upon  the  gal- 
lows, he  is  almost  saved,  but  the  pardon  doth  him  no  good.  So 
he  which  is  almost  a  Christian,  almost  zealous,  almost  righteous, 
which  doth  almost  love,  almost  believe,  shall  be  almost  saved ; 
that  is,  if  he  had  not  been  a  Christian  altogether.,  he  should  not 
be  damned.  Thus  every  man  is  a  Christian  almost.,  before  he  be 
a  Christian  altogether. 


The  Preacliing  of  Mohert  JHohinson.       i;g 

Yes,  there  are  two  admirable  men  not  very  often  referred 
to  —  Henry  Smith  and  Robeet  Robinson  — ^  both  in  their  way 
apostolic  men  ;  they  are  models  of  perspicuous  force  and 
of  ready  clearness.  If  I  desired  that  my  words  should 
flow  like  a  torrent,  I  would  study  Henry  Smith  ;  if  I  desired 
the  style  of  calm  persuasion,  of  quaint  and  concentrated 
power,  I  would  read  and  study  Robert  Robinson.  Henry 
Smith  is,  every  way,  one  of  the  happiest  representatives  of 
the  genius  of  the  old  Puritan  pulpit ;  while  Robinson, 
alas!  alas!  was  a  sort  of  passionless  farmhouse  Abelard. 
They  both  spoke  to  the  multitude,  recoihng  from  all  mystic 
questions.  Eminently  they  kept  the  high  road.  Robin- 
son's sentences  have  more  the  ring  and  sound  of  the  ham- 
mer, and  the  accompanying  spark  ;  Henry  Smith's  have 
more  of  the  trumpet,  the  tone  of  the  soldier,  the  conflict, 
and  the  clash  of  the  field.  Robinson  did  not  so  much 
preach  to  you  as  enter  into  conversation  with  you,  and  his 
sermons,  although  so  impressive  for  the  pulpit,  would  have 
been  as  impressive  if  spoken  by  the  fireside.  Smith  ran 
nimbly  along  like  a  prophet  of  the  Lord  sounding  an  alarm 
upon  the  way,  and  bringing  himself  into  immediate  per- 
sonal relations  with  the  souls  of  men.  These  men  have  no 
place  in  estimation  by  the  great  masters  of  the  pulpit ;  but 
if  you  rightly  understand  what  a  model  should  be,  and 
study  those  men,  you  will  bo  far  more  able  teachers  than  if 
you  gave  youi*  days  and  nights  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  or  South, 
to  Barrow,  or  even  to  Hall. 

Yes,  Robert  Robinson,  of  Cambridge,*  was  a  remarkable 
man,  of  whom  Robert  Hall,  his  illustrious  successor,  said, 
"  He  had  a  musical  voice,  and  was  master  of  all  its  intona- 
tions ;  he  had  wonderful  self-230Ssession,  and  could  say 
what  he  pleased,  ivhen  he  pleased,  and  how  he  pleased." 

*See  Miscellaneous  Works  of  Bobert  JRdbinson,  with  Memoir,  in 
four  vols. ;  and  The  Select  Works ^  in  one  vol.  By  Rev.  William 
Robinson. 


6o  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

With  few  advantages  of  education  in  early  life,  from  an 
unhappy  and  neglected  childhood,  and  bound  apprentice 
to  the  not  very  distinguished  profession  of  hair-dresser  — 
although  the  profession  which  gave  Jeremy  Taylor  to  the 
bench  of  bishops,  Tenterden  to  the  woolsack,  and  Ark- 
wright  to  the  manufactures  of  England  —  he  made  himself 
a  perfect  and  accompHshed,  although  never  an  elegant 
scholar.  What  he  was  as  an  orator  the  eulogy  of  Mr.  HaU 
has,  in  some  measure,  indicated.  In  truth,  his  style,  and 
the  topics  upon  which  he  employed  it  were  the  counter- 
parts of  each  other.  He  was  a  sort  of  Wilham  Cobbett  in 
the  pulpit ;  he  was  a  Bishop  of  Barns  and  Fields  ;  yet  he 
handled  the  most  grave  and  thoughtful  topics,  and  he  never 
handled  them  in  the  pulpit  with  coarse  and  vulgar  hands. 
Or  he  might  be  called  the  Warburton  of  the  conventicle  ; 
unepiscopal,  unecclesiastical,  he  had  much  of  the  rude 
scholarly  ruggedness  and  omnivorous  variety  of  free-think- 
ing dehght  in  heresy  of  that  singular  and  quarrelsome  pre- 
late. He  was  impatient  of  any  thoughts  which  ranged 
themselves  above  the  ranks  of  common  sense  ;  and  it  must 
be  admitted  that  his  mind  retained  a  considerable  degree 
of  that  strength  which  enabled  him  to  become  the  teacher 
of  the  multitudes,  while  he  raised  himself  above  them. 
His  language  was  most  vigorous,  strongly  imbued  with 
Saxon  significance  and  vitahty ;  but  imagery  in  language 
and  mystery  in  rehgion  seem  to  have  been  equally  his  con- 
tempt. He  had  great  power  of  humor  and  satire  —  more 
of  the  last  than  the  first  —  and  these  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
employ.  The  gownsmen  of  Cambridge  frequently  inter- 
rupted his  service  in  a  very  disgraceful  manner  ;  but  they 
sometimes  most  undoubtedly  got  the  worst  of  it,  as  appears 
from  the  following  anecdote : 

One  hot  summer's  day,  when  he  was  nearly  in  the  middle  of 
his  sermon,  a  clergyman  fifty  or  sixty  years  of  age  entered.     Pew 


Robert  Robinson,  6 1 

doors  were  thrown  open  in  vain.  He  walked  to  the  table-pew, 
took  his  seat  and,  began  quizzing,  and  so  disturbing  the  con- 
gregation, to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  ladies.  Robinson's 
spirit  was  stirred  within  him.  Having  paused  long^  enough  to 
regain  thoroughly  the  diverted  attention  of  the  audience,  he 
proceeded  thus:— "I  was  speaking  about  complex  and  simple 
ideas,  but  as  few  are  acquainted  with  logical  terms,  I  will  give 
an  illustration  or  two.  If,  walking  in  the  vicinity  of  the  India 
House,  I  were  to  meet  a  person  wearing  powder,  and  silver 
buckles,  and  carrying  a  gold-headed  cane,  I  should  have  the 
complex  idea  of  a  wealthy  merchant.  This  would  be  made  up 
of  a  number  of  simple  ideas ; "  and  the  peculiarities  of  a  suc- 
cessful merchant  were  enumerated.  ''  Again,  suppose  I  walking 
in  Pell  Mell,  I  might  there  meet  some  one  wearing  a  cocked  hat, 
a  red  coat,  gold  epaulettes,  &c.,  and  I  should  have  the  complex 
idea  of  an  officer  of  high  rank  in  the  army.  This,  as  in  the 
former  case,  includes  a  number  of  simple  ideas.  Once  more  :  if 
I  were  walking  near  St.  Paul's,  I  might  see  a  portly  gentleman, 
in  a  shovel  hat,  full  bottomed  wig,  black  coat,  black  silk  stock- 
ings, silver  buckles," —  describing  the  dress  before  him  —  ^'  and 
I  should  have  the  complex  idea  of  a  venerable  dignitary  of  the 
Church  of  England.  As  in  the  former  cases,  tlm  complex  idea 
would  include  many  simple  ideas,  the  gentleman,  the  scholar, 
the  divine  ;  "  and  then  followed  an  eloquent  description  of  the 
good  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  But,  my  friends,  you  may  have 
forgotten  the  text.  I  will  repeat  it.  '  Judge  not  according  to 
outward  appearance,  but  judge  righteous  judgment.' "  Fixing 
his  keen  eye  on  the  stranger  in  the  table-pew,  he  began  to  re- 
verse the  picture,  and  describe  impertinence  and  folly  in  a  black 
dress.     The  intruder  vanished  in  haste. 

Robinson,  moreover,  was  a  tolerably  successful  farmer, 
and  as  for  some  time  the  guaranteed  income  from  his 
church  was  j£i2  per  annum,  you  wiU  rejoice  that  he  turned 
his  husbandry  to  good  account.  He  was,  moreover,  a  very 
voluminous  writer  ;  and,  as  a  historian,  his  researches  were 
very  extensive.  I  have  often  been  surprised  that  a  man  so 
able,  so  laborious,  so  self-denying,  and  gifted,  should  be 


62  The  Vocation  of  ilie  Preaclier. 

consigned  to  so  much  obscurity.  It  is  true,  he  was  a  her- 
etic, a  Sabellian,  or  something  Hke  it.  The  author  (if  he 
was)  of  that  sweet  hymn,  sung  by  the  whole  church. 

Come,  thou  Fount  of  every  blessing, 

he  was  far  from  the  possession  of  a  sound  faith.  Moreover, 
we  have  said  his  sermons  were  preached,  for  the  most  part, 
in  bams  and  cottages.  Yet  we  have  heard  men,  and  men 
of  power,  declare  they  would,  for  all  practical  purposes,  ex- 
change the  style  of  Kobert  Hall  for  that  of  Kobert  Eobin- 
son  ;  and  others,  again,  that  they  would  rather  talk  hke 
him  than  hke  any  master  of  pulj^it  eloquence.  But  his 
Notes  on  Claude,  and  the  History  of  Baptism  and  the  Eccle- 
siastical  Researches,  must,  we  suppose,  be  doomed  to  the 
vault  of  rare,  and  forgotten,  but  valuable  books. 

He  was  born  at  Swaff  ham,  in  Norfolk,  the  8th  of  October, 
1735.  He  was  awakened  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and  in- 
terest in  a  rehgious  life  by  a  powerful  sermon  of  George 
Whitefield.  He  then  attended  the  ministries  of  Whitefield 
and  Wesley.  Dr.  GUI,  and  John  Guise,  and  "WiUiam  Ro- 
maine  were  also  among  his  most  cherished  teachers.  These 
men,  however,  perhaps,  could  not  have  satisfied  him  long. 
He  soon  began  himself  to  preach  in  villages.  In  this  he 
was  encouraged  by  that  singular  piece  of  ecclesiastical  eccen- 
tricity, John  Berridge.  Robinson  liighly  valued  him  ;  and, 
indeed,  while  the  clergyman  w^as  considerably  inferior  to 
the  young  convert,  in  the  breadth  and  build  of  his  mind, 
they  were  very  much  alike  in  a  certain  rugged  coarseness 
of  mind  and  character  ;  but  Robinson  was  constantly  avail- 
ing himself  of  all  resources  for  mental  furniture,  whether 
talking  with  a  day-laborer,  or  translating  Saurin,  studying 
Greek  and  Latin,  or  attending  to  the  economy  of  a  farm- 
yard. The  first  days  of  his  religious  life  were  passed  among 
the  Methodists.  He  very  soon,  however,  became  a  Baptist, 
and  in  1759  he  received  an  invitation  to  become  the  minis- 


The  Expositions  of  Hohinson.  63 

ter  of  the  congregation  in  Cambridge,  but  continued  on 
trial  for  two  years,  and  did  not  settle  in  Cambridge  until 
1761. 

He  continued  througbout  his  life  a  thorough  Dissenter, 
and  was  wont  to  ridicule,  I  think  with  a  somewhat  grace- 
less severity,  the  observances  of  the  EstabHshed  Church. 
"Eeally,"  he  says,  "when  I  compare  the  little  cheap  deco- 
rations of  Keformed  Churches  with  the  masterpieces  of 
Italy,  our  gaudy  days  with  theu*  grand  processions,  our 
beggarly  imitations  of  their  pontifical  magnificence,  I  caU 
theirs  j)omp,  ours  poverty.  They  are  nature  in  the  theatre 
of  the  metropoHs,  we  are  strollers  uttering  bombast  in  cast- 
off  finery  in  a  booth  at  a  fair."  The  satire  is  neither  true 
nor  kind  ;  but  the  writer  of  the  satire  was  honest.  He  had 
many  overtui*es  made  to  him  from  Church  dignitaries  after 
the  appearance  of  his  Plea  for  the  Divinity  of  Chrid,  but  he 
resisted  all ;  and  the  best  sermons  of  their  day  continued 
to  be  delivered  in  barns,  or  meeting-houses  little  better  than 
bams. 

His  expositions  of  Scripture  were  usually  remarkably 
fehcitous — very  plain  and  lucid.  Thus  we  have  before  us 
a  popular  rendering  of  a  criticism  upon  the  text,  "  SIcin  for 
s/cin,  yea,  all  that  a  man  hath  imU  he  give  for  his  life" 

Imagine  one  of  these  primitive  fairs.  A  multitude  of  people, 
from  all  paiis,  of  different  tribes  and  languages,  in  a  broad  field, 
all  overspread  with  various  commodities  to  be  exchanged.  Im- 
agine this  fair  to  be  held  after  a  good  hunting  season,  and  a  bad 
harvest.  The  skinners  are  numerous,  and  clothing  cheap. 
Wheat,  the  staff  of  life,  is  scarce,  and  the  whole  fair  dread  a 
famine.  How  many  skins  this  year  will  a  man  give  for  this 
necessary  article,  without  which  he  and  his  family  must  inev- 
itably die  ?  Why,  each  would  add  to  the  heap,  and  put  skin 
upon  skin^for  all  the  skins  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his 
life.  Imagine  the  wheat-growers,  of  which  Job  was  one,  carry- 
ing home  the  skins,  which  he  had  taken  for  wheat.    Imagine 


64  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher, 

the  party  engaged  to  protect  them  raising  the  tribute,  and  threat- 
ening if  it  were  not  paid  to  put  them  to  death.  What  propor- 
tion of  skins  would  these  merchants  give,  in  this  case  of  neces- 
sity ?  Skin  upon  shin^  all  the  skins  that  they  have  will  they  give 
for  their  lives.  The  proverb  then  means,  that  we  sliould  save 
our  lives  at  any  price.     Let  us  apply  it  to  ourselves.* 

Most  of  these  sermons  were  addressed  to  villagers  en- 
gaged in  the  occupations  of  farmhouse  and  country  life. 
Such  a  congregation  would,  we  may  suppose,  very  keenly 
appreciate  the  exercise  on  early  rising.  The  following  ex- 
tract is  leng-thy,  but  it  is  perfectly  beautiful  in  the  succes- 
sion of  suggestions  and  pictures  it  calls  to  the  eye.  The 
text  of  the  preacher  gives  the  refrain  of  each  paragraph. 

Let  us  look  about  us,  and  take  notice,  at  least,  of  some  of  the 
beauties  of  nature  in  a  morning,  for  the  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God^  the  frmamerit  sheiceth  his  handy  icorl:^  and  day  uttereth 
speech.  How  incomparably  line  is  the  dawning  of  the  day,  when 
the  soft  and  stealthy  light  comes  at  first  glimmering  with  the 
stars,  and  gradually  eclipses  them  all !  How  beautifully  fitted 
to  excite  our  attention  is  the  folding  and  the  parting  of  the  grey 
clouds,  drawn  back  lihe  a  curtain  to  give  us  a  sight  of  the  most 
magnificent  of  all  appearances,  the  rising  of  the  sun !  How  rich 
the  dew,  decking  every  spire  of  grass  with  colored  spangles  of 
endless  variety  and  inexpressible  beauty !  Larks  mount  and  fill 
the  air  with  a  cheap  and  perfect  music,  and  every  bush  and  every 
tree,  every  steeple  and  every  hovel,  emits  a  cooing  or  a  twittering, 
a  warbling,  or  a  chirping,  a  hailing  of  the  return  of  day.  Amidst 
so  many  voices,  shall  man  be  dumb  ?  Surely  a  good  man  must 
say,  My  voice  also  shalt  thou  hear  in  the  morning^  0  Lord. 

It  is  in  the  morning,  remarkably,  that  the  ox  hnoweth  his  oicner, 
and  tJie  ass  his  master^ s  crih.  Then,  if  ever,  man  feels  himself 
the  monarch,  and  to  him  who  rises  first,  all  domestic  animals 
pay  their  homage.  One  winds  and  purrs  about  him,  another 
frisks  and  capers  and  doth  all  but  speak.  The  stern  mastiff*  and 
the  plodding  ox,  the  noble  horse  and  the  harmless  sheep,  the 

*  Village  Sermons. 


Tlie  PreacMng  of  Robert  Robinson,      65 

prating  poultry  and  the  dronish  ass,  all  in  their  own  way  express 
their  joy  at  the  sight  of  their  master  ;  he  is  a  god  to  them,  for 
the  eyes  of  all  wait  on  him^  and  lie  givetli  tlieni  their  meat  in  season. 
It  is  to  these  animals  that  the  prophet  sends  us  for  instruction, 
and  from  their  behavior  to  us  he  would  have  us  learn  our  duty 
to  God.  Let  us  observe  how  much  these  creatures  contribute  to 
our  ease  and  comfort  through  life ;  let  us  remark  that  we  owe 
them  all  they  look  to  us  for ;  let  us  acknowledge  the  debt,  and 
our  inability  to  discharge  it  without  the  supplies  of  Providence ; 
let  us  address  our  prayers  and  praises  to  that  good  Master  in 
heaven,  whose  stewards  we  have  the  honor  to  be ;  let  us  lay  up 
for  this  great  family,  w^io  have  neither  storehouse  nor  ham  ;  let 
us  supply  them  with  a  liberal  hand ;  and  for  wisdom  and  pru- 
dence to  perform  all  these  duties,  let  us  resolve  with  the  psalm- 
ist, "  My  voice  shalt  thou  hear  in  the  morning,  O  Lord.  In  the 
morning  vnW  I  direct  my  prayer  unto  thee,  and  will  look  up." 

When  man  walks  abroad  in  a  morning,  every  sense  is  feasted, 
and  the  finest  emotions  of  an  honest  and  benevolent  heart  are 
excited.  It  is  next  to  impossible  to  be  sour  or  dull.  Above,  the 
spacious  canopy,  the  talernacle  or  tent  for  the  sun^  in  a  thousand 
clouds  of  variegated  forms,  glowing  with  colors  in  every  con- 
ceivable mixture,  skirted  and  shaded  with  sulky  mists,  afford  a 
boundless  track  of  pleasure  to  the  eye.  Around,  the  fragrant 
air,  perfumed  by  a  variety  of  flowers,  refreshes  his  smell.  He 
snuffs  the  odor,  and  tastes,  as  it  were,  in  delicate  mixtures,  tho 
sours  and  the  sweets. 

The  village  pours  forth  its  healthful  sons,  each  with  his  cattle 
parting  off  to  his  work,  with  innocence  in  his  employment,  a 
ruddy  health  in  his  countenance,  and  spirits  and  cheerfulness  in 
his  address,  that  mak^  him  an  object  of  envy  to  a  king.  Here 
the  sly  shepherd's  boy  surveys  and  plots  for  his  flock,  and  there 
the  old  herdman  tales  and  talks  to  his  cattle,  and  loves  patting 
their  flanks  to  chant  over  the  history  of  every  heifer  under  his 
care.  And  have  I  only  nothing  to  do  in  this  busy  scene  :  have  I 
nothing  to  say  among  so  many  voices  ?  Am  I  a  man,  and  have 
I  no  pleasure  in  seeing  the  peace  and  plenty,  the  health  and  hap- 
piness of  my  fellow-creatures  ?  Have  I  no  good  wishes  for 
them  ?  0  Lord^  in  the  morning  will  T  direct  my  prayer  unto  thee, 
and  loill  hole  wp. 


66  Tlie  Vocation  of  the  P readier. 

Should  we  make  our  observations  on  a  different  season  of  the 
year,  on  the  morning  after  a  tempestuous  night,  in  which  the 
howling  winds  had  torn  up  our  timbers  by  the  roots,  overset  our 
tottering  chimneys,  and  carried  half  the  thatch  of  our  cottages 
away  ;  or  in  which  our  sheep  lay  buried  in  drifts  of  snow,  and 
the  other  cattle  were  deprived  of  all  their  green  winter  meat ; 
or  in  which  our  rivers  had  swelled  into  floods,  bloT\Ti  up  the 
banks,  laid  all  our  meadows  under  water,  covered  the  very  ridges 
of  our  corn,  threatened  the  lives  of  all  our  flock,  and  de&troyed 
the  hope  of  man;  in  all  these,  and  in  all  other  such  cases,  the 
perfections  of  God  are  displayed,  the  emotions  of  men  and 
Christians  excited,  and  the  language  of  the  text  enforced,  My 
voice  shalt  thou  hear  in  the  morning^  0  Lord^  in  the  morning  will 
I  direct  my  prayer  unto  thee^  and  will  loolc  up,^ 

The  following  most  characteristic  letter  gives  an  idea  of 
the  mingled  industry,  humor,  and  roughness  of  the  man  ; 
but  I  suppose  few  ministers  could  give  such  an  account  of 
the  spending  of  one  day.  It  is  addi^essed  to  Henry  Keene, 
Esq.,  of  Walworth. 

Old  Friend — You  love  I  should  write  folios :  that  depends 
upon  circumstances,  and  if  the  thunder-storm  lasts  it  will  be  so  ; 
but  what  a  sad  thing  it  is  to  be  forced  to  write  when  one  has 
nothing  to  say.  Well,  you  shall  have  an  apology  for  not  writing, 
— that  is  a  diary  of  one  day. 

Rose  at  three  o^'clock  —  crawled  into  the  library — and  met 
one  who  said,  "  Yet  a  little  while  is  the  light  with  you :  walk 
while  ye  have  the  light  —  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can 
work  —  my  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work."  Rang  the 
great  bell,  and  roused  the  girls  to  milking  —  went  up  to  the 
farm,  roused  the  horse-keeper-  fed  the  horses  while  he  was 
getting  up  —  called  the  boy  to  suckle  the  calves,  and  clean  out 
the  cow-house  —  lighted  the  pipe  —  walked  round  the  gardens 
to  see  wh^t  was  wanted  there  —  went  up  to  the  paddock  to  see 
if  the  weanling  calves  were  well  —  went  down  to  the  ferry  to 
see  whether  the  boy  had  scooped  and  cleaned  the  boats  —  re- 

*  Village  Sermons. 


Queer  Description  of  a  Preaclier''s  Day,     67 

turned  to  the  farm  —  examined  the  shoulders,  heels,  traces,  chaff, 
and  corn  of  eight  horses  going  to  plough  —  mended  the  acre- 
staff —  cut  some  thongs,  whip-corded  the  boys'  plough-whips  — 
pumped  the  troughs  full  —  saw  the  hogs  fed  —  examined  the 
swill-tub,  and  then  the  cellar  —  ordered  a  quarter  of  malt,  for 
the  hogs  want  grains  and  the  men  want  beer  —  filled  the  pipe 
again,  returned  to  the  river,  and  bought  a  lighter  of  turf  for 
dairy  fires,  and  another  of  sedge  for  ovens  —  hunted  up  the 
wheelbarrows  and  set  them  a  trundling  —  returned  to  the'farm, 
called  the  men  to  breakfast,  and  cut  the  boys'  bread  and  cheese, 
and  saw  the  wooden  bottles  filled  —  sent  one  plough  to  three 
roods,  another  to  the  three  half  acres,  and  so  on  —  shut  the 
gates,  and  the  clock  struck  five  —  breakfast  —  set  two  men  to 
ditch  the  five  roods  —  two  more  to  chop  sads,  and  spread  about 
the  land —  two  more  to  throw  up  muck  in  the  yard  —  and  three 
men  and  six  women  to  weed  wheat  —  set  on  the  carpenter  to  re- 
pair cow-cribs,  and  set  them  up  till  winter  —  the  wheeler  to  mend 
up  the  old  carts,  cart-ladders,  rakes,  etc.,  preparatory  to  hay- 
time  and  harvest  —  walked  to  the  six  acres,  found  hogs  in  the 
grass  —  went  back,  and  sent  a  man  to  hedge  and  thorn  —  sold 
the  butcher  a  fat  calf,  and  the  suckler  a  lean  one  —  the  clock 
strikes  nine  — walked  into  barley-field  —  barleys  fine,  picked  off 
a  few  tiles  and  stones,  and  cut  a  few  thistles  —  the  i)eas  fine,  but 
foul ;  the  charlock  must  be  topj)ed  —  the  tares  doubtful ;  the  fly 
seems  to  have  taken  them  —  prayed  for  rain,  but  could  not  see  a 
cloud  —  came  round  to  the  wheat  field  —  wheat  rather  thin,  but 
the  finest  color  in  the  world  —  sent  four  women  on  the  shortest 
wheats  —  ordered  one  man  to  weed  the  ridge  of  the  long  wheats, 
and  two  women  to  keep  up  rank  and  file  with  him  in  the  fur- 
rows —  thistles  many  —  blue-bottles  no  end  —  traversed  all  the 
wheat-field  —  came  to  the  fallow-field  —  the  ditches  have  run 
crooked  —  set  them  straight  —  the  flag-sads  cut  too  much  — 
rush-sads  too  little,  strength  wasted,  show  the  men  how  to  three- 
comer  them  —  laid  out  more  work  for  the  ditchers  —  went  to  the 
ploughs  —  set  the  foot  a  little  higher,  cut  a  wedge,  set  the  coulter 
deeper,  must  go  and  get  a  new  mould-board  against  to-morrow 
—  went  to  th6  other  plough  —  picked  up  some  wool  and  tied 
over  the  traces  —  mended  a  horse-tree,  tied  a  thong  to  the  plough 


68  TliG  Vocation  of  the  Preacher, 

hammer  —  went  to  see  which  lands  wanted  ploughing  first  —  sat 
down  under  a  bush  —  wondered  how  any  man  could  be  so  silly 
as  to  call  me  reverend — read  two  verses,  and  thought  of  His 
loving-kindness  in  the  midst  of  His  temple,  gave  out,  "  Come  all 
harmonious  tongues,"  and  set  Mount  Ephraim  tune  —  rose  up  — 
whistled  —  the  dogs  wagged  their  tails,  and  on  we  w^ent  —  got 
home  —  dinner  ready  —  filled  the  pipe  —  drank  some  milk  — 
and  fell  asleep  —  woke  by  the  carpenter  for  some  slats,  which 
the  sawyer  must  cut  —  the  Reverend  Messrs.  A.  in  a  coat,  B.  in  a 
gown  of  black,  and  C.  in  one  of  purple,  came  to  drink  tea,  and 
settle  whether  Gomer  was  the  father  of  Celts,  and  Gauls,  and 
Britons,  or  only  the  uncle — proof  sheet  from  Mr.  Archdeacon 
—  corrected  it  —  washed  —  dressed  —  went  to  meeting,  and 
preached  from  The  end  of  all  things  is  at  hand,  he  ye  sober  and 
watch  unto  prayer — found  a  dear  brother  reverence  there,  who 
went  home  with  me,  and  edified  us  all  out  of  Solomon's  song, 
with  a  dish  of  tripe  out  of  Leviticus,  and  a  golden  candlestick 
out  of  Exodus.  Really  and  truly  we  look  for  you  and  Mrs. 
Keene,  and  Mr.  Dore  at  harvest,  and  if  you  do  not  come,  I  know 
what  you  all  are.  Let  Mr.  Winch  go  where  he  can  better  him- 
self.    Is  not  this  a  folio  ?    And  like  many  other  folios  ? 

R.  Robinson.* 

There  was  much  in  the  affability  of  Robinson,  most 
pleasant  and  commendable.  We  read  that  it  was  a  maxim 
with  him,  that  if  a  child  lisped  to  give  you  pleasure,  you 
ought  to  be  pleased.  The  smallest  expression  of  kindness 
from  villagers,  if  but  the  lighting  of  his  pipe,  was  followed 
by  tokens  of  his  esteem.  Wlien  preaching  in  barns,  he  de- 
lighted to  visit  his  poor  brethren  ;  he  not  only  was  pleased 
to  regale  himself  with  their  brown  bread  and  black  tea,  but 
he  took  care  that  his  poor  friends  should  lose  nothing  by 
their  attentions.  He  often  used  to  say,  "When  a  poor 
person  shows  anxiety  to  administer  to  your  comfort,  do  not 
interrupt  him  ;  why  deprive  him  of  the  pleasure  of  ex- 
pressing his  friendship?"     After  his   death,    among  his 

*  Memoirs  of  Robert  Robinson.    By  George  Dyer,  1796. 


Robert  Robinson,  69 

papers  was  found  a  list  of  memoranda,  or  little  commis- 
sions to  be  executed  by  him  when  in  London,  such  as  the 
following  : — "B.'s  petitions;  gown  for  poor  M.  ;  M.  M.'s 
son  to  be  seen  ;  H.  wishes  Mrs.  H.  to  be  merciful  ;  W. 
thinks  his  son's  wages  are  too  small ;  Watts's  Hymns  for  T. 
H.  ;  Testament  for  C."  He  appeared  nowhere  to  more 
advantage  than  among  the  poorest  of  his  flock.  Each 
Sunday  he  devoted  the  intervals  betwixt  morning  and 
evening  service  to  friendly  intercourse,  and  being  fond  of 
a  pipe,  though  he  was  no  drinker,  he  used  to  get  his  poor 
people  round  him  at  an  old  widow-woman's  house  near  the 
meeting:  here  he  gratified  himself  in  hearing  their- dis- 
tresses, in  answermg  their  difficulties,  and,  to  the  best  of 
his  power,  in  relieving  their  wants.  Robinson's  brethren 
often  found  fault  with  him  for  attending  to  farming.  He 
was  not  very  courteous  in  his  mode  of  replying  to  their 
condemnations  of  him.  "Godly  boobies,"  he  would  say, 
"  too  idle,  many  of  them,  to  work,  too  ignorant  to  give  in- 
struction, and  too  conceited  to  study,  spending  their  time 
in  tattling  and  mischief ;  are  these  the  men  to  direct  my 
conduct,  to  censure  my  ministry  ?  " 

He  died  in  Birmingham,  whither  he  had  travelled  to 
preach  for  Dr.  Priestly.  He  had  been  somewhat  depressed 
in  health ;  but  the  night  before  his  death  he  rallied,  and 
seemed  to  have  regained  his  usual  vivacity  : — 

Soon  after  eleven  o'clock  he  retired  to  rest,  and  was  found  in 
the  morning  dead,  the  bed-clothes  being  unruffled,  the  features 
not  distorted,  the  body  almost  cold.  The  physicians  pronounced 
the  disease  of  which  he  died  to  be  angina  pectoris.  His  wish 
had  been  to  die  "  softly,  suddenly,  and  alone." 

The  extracts  I  have  given  will  sufficiently  indicate  the 
style  of  Robinson  and  the  structure  of  his  mind.  I  have 
said  the  architecture  of  his  mind  was  of  the  plain  barn-door 
style.     His  writings  abound  in  illustrations  of  plain,  and 


no  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

simple,  and  unaffected  grace  ;  but  his  sentences  can  never  be 
called  graceful.  They  go  right  forward  to  their  object,  and 
they  always  reach  it,  and  their  directness  produces  a  pleas- 
ing impression  on  the  mind  ;  but  this  is  all.  And  the  style 
is  irresistible,  but  by  the  force  of  simphcity.  Every  para- 
graph is  laden  with  convictions.  It  modifies  the  admira- 
tion we  might  feel,  to  know  that  he  had  a  manner  of  shock- 
ing coarseness,  in  which  he  dehghted  to  express  himseK ; 
when  he  speaks  of  Calvin,  Cobbett  could  not  use  language 
more  gross  :  "  Nothing  shocks  me  so  much  as  to  see  the 
Calvinist  Baptists  sing  psalms  around  the  tomb  of  that 
bloody  Calvin  who  burnt  Sers^etus  ;"  but  he  did  not  indulge 
in  this  speech  in  the  pul]3it.  Yet  I  find  it  easier  to  com- 
mend the  architecture  of  his  mind,  than  the  fulness,  warmth, 
or  sufficiency  of  his  faith. 

Now,  in  closing  for  the  present,  let  me  say.  Obtain  an 
empire  over  souls — ^not  for  your  own  sake,  but  for  Christ's 
sake.  Start  from  a  centre  with  clearly-defined  principles, 
do  not  be  afraid  if  they  are  called  prejudices, — to  lay  aside 
prejudices  is  to  lay  aside  principles,  only  see  their  tendency  ; 
weigh  them  in  the  balances  of  the  sanctuary.  Have  preju- 
dices, settle  some  things  once  for  all ;  do  not  have  again  to 
lay  the  foundation.  Settle  some  questions,  and  then  go  on. 
Pray  for  strength  to  fulfil  the  vocation  to  which  you  arc 
called  ;  for  the  weakness  of  your  will  will  be  shown  not  in 
choice,  but  in  execution.  It  is  that  doing  which  so  sadly 
defeats  us  alL  There  is  a  remark  of  Schleirmacher  that, 
"every  man  is  a  priest,  so  far  as  he  draws  around  him 
others  in  the  sphere  to  which  he  has  appropriated  himself, 
and  in  which  he  professes  to  be  a  master  ;  and  every  one 
is  a  layman,  so  far  as  he  is  guided  by  the  experience  and 
council  of  another  within  the  sphere  of  rehgion,  where  he 
is  comparatively  a  stranger."  It  is  one  of  those  remarks 
one  cannot  quite  endorse  ;  but  how  nmch  truth  there  is  in 
it.     Preach  so  as  to  be  centres — prophets  to  the  souls  of 


Anecdote  of  William  Jay.  ji 

men.  But  remember  your  vocation.  I  heard  the  other  day 
an  anecdote  of  a  lecturer  ;  he  had  been  lecturing  on  George 
Fox,  the  founder  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  in  a  very  un- 
satisfactory manner,  without  any  appreciation  of  his  spirit- 
ual insight  and  depth  ;  when,  as  he  went  out  of  the  room, 
an  old  Quaker  went  up  to  him  and  said,  "Friend,  thou 
hast  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is  deep."  That 
may  be  said,  I  suppose,  of  many  thousands  of  ministers. 
How,  then,  can  they  reach  the  souls  of  men  ?  It  ought  not 
to  be  said  of  you  ;  it  possibly  will  be  said  of  many  of  you. 
You  must  aim,  therefore,  at  culture — spiritual  culture,  that 
you  may  have  transactions  with  the  souls  of  men,  for  their 
sakes,  for  Christ's  sake.  Your  power  over  the  souls  of 
men  will  be  from  your  own  sense  of  your  relation  to 
eternity.  It  must  be  power — not  to  charm,  not  to  please, 
not  to  attract  crowds,  but  reaUy  to  obtain  power  over  souls. 
Man  has  been  called  a  many-sided  animal.  I  do  not  like 
such  definitions  ;  but  I  see  that  the  animal  races  have  a 
goal  to  which  they  attain.  Each  tendency  is  fulfilled,  and 
each  mdividual  and  race  expires.  "But man,"  says  Jacobi, 
"  is  a  yonder-sided  animal;"  he  is,  if  he  is  an  animal  at  all ; 
he  has  his  true  fulfilment  beyond  the  rolHng  river,  or  all  our 
traditions  and  our  hopes  are  vain  ;  Christ  is  not  risen,  and 
we  are  yet  in  our  sins.  Live,  then,  in  the  memory  of  these 
gTcat  endeavors,  and  let  them  crown  and  glorify  all  youi* 
efforts. 

You  may  be  young,  but  "  let  no  man  despise  thy  youth." 
Please  to  remember  that  your  being  here  implies  that  you 
have  sown  your  wild  oats  ;  surely  I  beheve  a  man  should 
have  sown  his  wild  oats  before  he  begins  to  preach  ;  ah,  not 
merely  in  life — in  faith.  You  know  in  whom  you  have  be- 
heved  ;  not  by  hearsay,  but  by  experience,  by  conviction, 
by  knowledge  ;  if  not  give  up,  retire  away.  I  command 
you  to  remember,  your  value  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel 
depends  not  on  the  fifty  things  you  do  not  believe,  but  on 


72  The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 

the  two  or  three  you  do.  Youi'  youth  need  not  be  despised  ; 
the  youth  of  WiUiam  Jay  was  not  despised  ;  nor  was  the 
youth  of  John  Angell  James.  When  a  testy  old  gentle- 
man said  to  WilHam  Jay,  when  he  first  began  to  preach,  he 
"  had  no  notion  of  beardless  boys  becoming  preachers,"  he 
said,  "  Pray,  Sir,  does  not  Paul  say  to  Timothy,  '  Let  no 
man  despise  thy  youth.'  You  remind  me.  Sir,  of  what  I 
have  read  of  a  French  monarch,  who  had  received  a  young 
ambassador  and  complaining,  said,  *  Your  master  should 
not  have  sent  a  beardless  striphng.'  *  Sir,'  said  the  youth- 
ful ambassador,  ^  had  my  master  supposed  you  wanted  a 
a  beard  he  would  have  sent  you  a  goat.'  " 

A  distinguished  traveller  says : — 

Being  at  Calais,  I  climbed  up  into  the  lighthouse,  and  con- 
versed mtli  the  keeper.  "  Suppose,"  said  I,  that  one  of  these 
lights  should  go  out !"  "  Never !  Impossible !"  he  cried,  with  a 
sort  of  consternation  at  the  bare  hypothesis.  "  Sir,"  said  he, 
pointing  to  the  ocean,  "yonder,  where  nothing  can  be  seen, 
there  are  ships  going  to  every  part  of  the  world.  If  to-night 
one  of  my  burners  were  to  go  out,  within  six  month;*  would 
come  a  letter,  perhaps  from  India,  perhaps  from  America,  per- 
haps from  some  place  I  never  heard  of,  sapng,  on  such  a  night, 
the  watchman  neglected  his  post,  and  vessels  were  in  danger. 
Ah,  Sir !  sometimes  in  the  dark  nights,  in  the  stormy  weather,  I 
look  out  to  sea,  and  feel  as  if  the  eye  of  the  whole  world  were 
looking  at  my  light.     Go  out !     Burn  dim !     Oh,  never !" 

That  keeper  truly  felt  the  responsibility  of  his  position. 
His  duty  was  to  keep  hghts  continually  burning  during  the 
night  for  the  guidance  of  vessels.  The  Christian  minister 
is  a  lighthouse  keeper.  The  world  is  enveloped  in  moral 
darkness.  This  is  not  merely  an  accident,  or  attribute  of 
its  condition  ;  but  its  essence  and  principal  element.  It  is 
a  darkness  that  pervades  and  overshadows  all  mankind. 
And  you  are  "hghthouse  keepers." 

In  the  stoiy  of  the  Council  of  Nice  there  are  two  inci- 
dents, which  for  the  humor  of  the  one,  and  the  happy  teach- 


Old  Church  Legends.  73 

ing  of  tlie  other,  deserve  to  be  borne  in  mind.  It  is  said 
that  Nicolay,  Bishop  of  Myra,  when  Anus  was  propounding 
his  heresies  to  the  Council,  quite  impatient  of  all  argument, 
lifted  his  fist,  and  gave  the  great  heresiarch  a  smart  box  on 
the  ear.  A  most  impressive  argument,  and  in  spirit  often 
followed  since.  But  the  more  happy  incident  is  that  re- 
lated of  Spiridion,  a  rude  shepherd.  It  is  said  the  disputes 
were  running  high,  and  the  philosophers  sounding  on  their 
perilous  way,  when  before  one  of  the  chief  arch-disputants 
there  hmped  the  shepherd  Sx3iridion  ;  he  had  but  one  eye, 
and  he  had  a  limping  leg  ;  he  had  lost  the  use  of  both  in 
the  heroism  of  martyrdom  for  the  faith,  and  now  abruptly 
he  broke  in  and  said,  "  Christ  and  his  apostles  left  us  not  a 
system  of  logic,  nor  a  vain  deceit,  but  a  naked  truth,  to  be 
guarded  by  faith  and  good  works."  Turning  full  upon  the 
disputants,  especially  one  Eulogius,  nicknamed  Fair-speech, 
he  said,  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  hear  me,  philoso- 
phers ; — there  is  one  God,  maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and 
of  all  things  visible  and  iuvisible,  who  made  all  things  by 
the  w^ord  of  His  power,  and  by  the  hohness  of  His  Holy 
Spirit ; — this  Word,  by  which  name  we  call  the  Son  of  God, 
took  compassion  on  men,  for  then.'  wanderings  astray,  and 
for  their  savage  condition,  and  chose  to  be  bom  of  a  wofaan, 
and  to  converse  with  men,  and  to  die  for  them,  and  Ho 
shall  come  to  judge  every  one  for  the  things  done  in  life. 
These  things  we  believe  without  curious  inquiry  ;  cease  then 
from  the  vain  labors  of  seeking  proofs  against  what  is 
established  by  faith  ;  and  the  manner  in  which  these  things 
may  be  or  may  not  be,  but  if  thou  believest,  answer  at  once 
the  questions  as  I  put  them  to  you." 

The  philosopher  was  struck  dumb  by  this  new  mode  of 
argument.  He  could  only  reply  in  a  general  way,  that  he 
assented.  "Then,"  answered  the  old  man,  "if  thou  be- 
lievest, rise  and  follow  me  to  the  Lord's  house,  and  receive 
the  sign  of  this  faith."  The  philosopher  was  staggered,  he 
4 


74 


The  Vocation  of  the  Preacher. 


turned  to  the  crowd  of  his  disciples,  and  he  said,  *^  Hear 
w£,  my  learned  friends,  so  long  as  it  was  a  matter  of  words 
to  words,  whatever  was  opposed  I  overthrevv^  by  my  skill  in 
speaking  ;  but  when  in  the  place  of  words  power  came  oiU 
of  the  speakei^'s  lips,  words  could  no  longer  resist  power — 
man  could  no  longer  resist  power.  If  any  of  you  feel  as  I 
have  felt,  let  him  believe  in  Christ  and  foUow  this  old  man 
in  whom  God  has  spoken."  And  I  think  this  story  illus- 
trates what  we  desire  the  power  of  the  preacher  to  be :  the 
magnetic  power  of  earnestness,  and  its  simphcity,  over 
argument  and  speculation. 

Tliis  hints  to  us  the  vocation  of  the  preacher — it  is  im- 
mediately  to  front,  and  interest,  and  arrest  the  souls  of  men.  A 
mighty  work ;  do  not  place  it  beneath  any  work ;  magnify 
the  office,  the  office  to  which  you  have  consecrated  your- 
selves, and  beheve  that  no  other  work  stands  higher  or 
can  stand  so  high  ;  I  trust  I  have  not  to  ask  you  to  believe 
that  the  vocation  of  either  the  poet  or  the  artist,  or  the  man 
of  letters  can  be  higher,  or  can  be  so  high.  Yes  !  I  shall 
say  it !  I  put  it  strongly  : — to  mediate  between  the  Savioiu' 
and  souls  ;  to  stand  by  the  pure  river  of  the  water  of  life, 
anc^  to  say,  "  Let  him  that  thirsteth  come  ;"  "  ho !  every 
one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters  ;" — this  is  the  vo- 
cation of  the  preacher. 

Finally  :  arrived  at  this  preliminary  point,  I  think  I  may 
recite  to  you  another  old  Church  legend.  It  is  said  of  an 
old  saint  of  the  first  ages,  that  to  him  once  the  prince  of 
evil  appeared,  arrayed  in  jewelled  robes:  "I  am  Christ," 
said  he ;  but  there  was  one  mark  of  Messiahship  he  had 
either  been  unable  or  neglected  to  assume.  The  old  saint 
looked  steadfastly  on  him,  and  then  said  he,  "  But  where 
are  the  prints  of  the  nails  ?"  Let  us  remember,  however 
eloquence  may  ghtter  or  intellect  aspire,  that  this  is  the 
test — ifc  must  n6i  be  wanted  :  it  will  be  still  said,  "  Where 
are  the  prints  of  the  nails  ?" 


III. 

Lamps,  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets  in 
the  Jewish  Church. 


EMINDING  you  of  the  idea  and  definition  of  the 
Christian  preacher  abready  given,  namely,  that 
he  is  the  awakener  and  the  searcher  of  the  con- 
science ;  not  an  intellectual  lecturer,  not  a  clas- 
sical teacher  and  schoolmaster,  not  a  x^icture-painter,  but  a 
man  possessed  by  the  knowledge  of  the  infinite  destinies 
and  obhgations  of  man  ;  I  may  yet  again  refer  you,  as  I 
referred  you  last  week,  to  the  character  of  the  Hebrew 
prophet.  It  is  an  illustration  of  the  prodigious  influence 
of  speech,  that  the  whole  history  of  the  Hebrew  people  is 
inwrought  with  the  words  of  their  great  prophets.  Pericles 
and  Demosthenes  in  Greece,  and  Cicero  in  Eome,  were  il- 
lustrious accidents  in  the  histories  of  those  great  repubhcs  ; 
but  in  Judea  the  prophets  formed  a  divine  and  royal  suc- 
cession. Their  words  became,  from  the  earhest  days  of 
national  history,  the  sceptre,  passed  from  hand  to  hand  ; 
the  law,  from  life  to  life  ;  the  prophets  were  the  masters  of 
opinion  and  of  emotion  ;  the  prophets  roused  the  nation, 
their  words  flamed  along,  lighting  up  the  way  to  the  battle- 
field ;  they  were  able  to  anoint,  and  crown,  and  to  depose 
kings  ;  perpetually,  from  age  to  age,  they  fronted  the  vices 
(75) 


76        Lamps^  etc, J  in  the  Jewish  Church. 

and  idolatries  of  tlieir  times  ;  their  fiery  breath,  again  and 
again,  cast  down  and  consumed  the  idols,  to  which  that 
cruel  and  sensational  people  continually  returned.  As  I 
have  said,  they  recited  the  national  story ;  they  were  the 
inspired  depositories  of  the  nation's  annals  and  actions ; 
they  were  the  inspired  forerunners  of  the  nation's  hopes, 
always  pointing  to  the  morning  light,  ever  shining  in  the 
most  disconsolate  epochs  in  the  distant  sky. 

It  was  thus  that  Moses,  the  founder  of  the  great  com- 
monwealth, was  a  prophet,  although  "He  said  unto  the 
Lord,  oh,  my  Lord,  I  am  not  eloquent,  but  slow  of  speech, 
and  of  a  slow  tongue.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him.  Who 
hath  made  man's  mmtth,  or  who  maketh  the  dumb,  or  the 
deaf,  or  the  seeing  ?  Have  not  I,  the  Lord  ?"  It  was  thus 
that  the  prophet  became  a  domestic  institution  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  in  the  wilderness,  when  "the  Spirit 
came  upon  Eldad  and  Medad,  and  they  prophesied,"  and 
received  the  sanction  of  Moses,  as  he  said,  "  Would  that  all 
the  Lord's  people  were  prophets."  It  was  thus,  when  the 
faint-hear tedness  of  men  called  for  "  great  searchings  of  the 
heart,"  that  a  woman  like  Deborah  arose,  reciting  the  splen- 
dors of  her  song  beneath  the  old  oak  tree,  while  the  sword 
of  Barak  shone  upon  the  field.  Prophecy  hghtens  the  ro- 
mantic heroism  of  Gideon,  and  exhibits  its  rays  of  flame 
through  the  wild  feats  of  Samson.  And  thus  Samuel — the 
Athanasius,  as  he  has  been  called,  of  Judea,  the  last  repre- 
sentative of  the  ancient  Mediaeval  Church  of  Judea — is  ho 
through  whom  the  Lord  revealed  HimseK,  and  through 
whom  He  inaugurated  the  beginning  of  a  more  distinct 
Messianic  and  prophetic  dispensation.  Kays  of  prophetic 
insight  and  inspiration  must  have  gleamed  through  the 
mind  of  Saul,  thus  giving  to  us  the  hint  of  what  was  lost, 
when  "he  departed  from  the  Lord"  and  gave  himself  to 
madness.  I  need  not  remind  you  of  the  illustrious  succes- 
sion from  that  time.     But  I  would  present  Isaiah  to  you 


Isaiah  as  a  Model  Preaclier. 


77 


as  at  once  the  most  sublime  illustration  of  the  Hebre-w 
prophet — the  Dante  of  Judea — ^perhaps  the  loftiest  of  all 
bards,  inspired  or  uninspired,  of  any  age,  and  as  furnishing 
a  wonderfully  complete  portrait  of  the  sacred  prophet,  the 
minister  in  the  world,  or  in  the  sanctuary,  the  reprover  in 
the  one,  and  the  consoler  in  the  other.  I  would  present 
Isaiah  to  you  as  the  preacher  to  our  times,  and  would  find 
in  his  succession  of  glowing  and  w^onderful  words  the 
types  of  those  states  of  minds  and  society  you  must  ad- 
dress. 

Isaiah  is  one  of  the  prophets  most  constantly  read  ;  and 
his  words  have  a  most  penetrating  clearness.  It  is  possible 
to  enter  into  the  meaning  of  some  of  the  prophetic  state- 
ments ;  and,  no  doubt,  miUions  have,  with  very  clear  eyes 
and  hearts,  read  and  interpreted  much  that  flows  along 
with  such  astonishing  power ;  but  it  is  with  this  book,  as 
with  most  other  books  of  Scriptures,  it  is  not  read  or  un- 
derstood as  a  whole.  The  clear  insight  of  the  prophet  into 
the  whole  worlds  of  cause  and  consequence  is  not  under- 
stood. He  is  called,  most  truly  and  appropriately,  the 
Evangelical  Prophet ;  but  the  relation  of  evangelical  truth 
to  the  great  system  of  the  world,  this  is  seldom  perceived. 
It  is,  perhaps,  regarded  as  a  book  of  magnificent  fragments 
rather  than  a  coherent,  and  consistent,  and  most  magnifi- 
cent whole. 

It  is  probable  that  Isaiah  was  twenty  years  old  when  he 
began  his  ministry,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Uzziah. 
He  would  then  be  eighty  at  the  death  of  Hezekiah  ;  he  was 
then  approaching  the  close  of  his  career  ;  hence  the  mourn- 
ful and  pathetic,  and  elegaic  strain : 

The  righteous  perisheth,  and  no  man  layeth  it  to  heart : 
And  mercifal  men  are  taken  away,  none  considering 
That  the  righteous  is  taken  away  from  the  evil  to  come. 


yS        Zamps^  etc.,  in  the  Jeivish  Cliurcli. 

Then  followed  the  years  of  Manasseh  ;  and  tradition  de- 
clares that  the  great  poet  was  one  of  the  martyrs  whose 
innocent  blood  that  king  shed.  To  him  also  is  assigned 
the  mournful  dignity,  the  melancholy  reference  of  the  elev- 
enth of  Hebrews, — "They  were  sawn  asunder."  During 
those  years  what  a  procession  of  events  passed  in  review 
before  the  eyes  of  the  prophet,  bringing  with  them  ever 
variegated,  and  brighter,  or  darker- colored  experience. 
No  doubt,  if  we  seek  the  centre  from  which  Isaiah  spoke, 
we  shall  find,  that  to  him  was  given  that  power  of  insight 
by  which  we  are  able  to  "  see  into  the  life  of  things."  All 
the  people  round  the  Hebrew  nation,  and  the  Hebrew  na- 
tion  itself,  the  distant  isles  of  the  sea,  and  the  distant  ages, 
all  became,  to  the  mind  of  the  prophet,  concrete  parts  of 
one  almighty  plan.  Amidst  the  rush  of  the  nations,  Isaiah 
maintained  and  proclaimed  entire  trust  in  the  Lord  as 
the  actual  ruler  and  ever-present  friend,  watching  over 
them  every  moment  as  the  husband  and  the  father.  The 
unity  of  God  is  the  "  master-light  of  all  Isaiah's  philosophy, 
moral  and  political ;  the  one  lesson  which  in  a  himdred 
forms  he  is  continually  teaching  the  people."  We  should 
not  hesitate  to  maintain  that  to  Isaiah  was  vouchsafed,  in 
a  larger  proportion  than  to  any  other  of  the  prophets,  a 
revelation,  an  insight,  into  the  great  drift,  and  tendencies, 
and  plan  of  Providence.  No  one  ever  saw  so  clearly  as  he 
into  the  pure  and  essential  reasons  of  things.  "  Our  great- 
est master,"  as  Isaac  Taylor  well  calls  him,  "in  the  pure 
reason."  His  imagination  was  wondrously  compact.  He 
saw  into  the  life  of  all  things.  To  him  things  the  most  re- 
mote became  near  and  present ;  in  the  strength  of  the  eter- 
nal truth  by  which  he  spake,  and  the  clearness  of  the  light 
by  which  he  saw,  "  one  day  was  as  a  thousand  years,  and 
a  thousand  years  as  one  day." 

To  attempt  to  interpret  Isaiah  beneath  the  slavery  of 
classical  mles,  is  to  fail  of  the  interpretation,  and  to  do  in- 


Isaiali.  79 

justice  to  the  source  and  spring  of  his  inspiration.  He 
cannot  be  understood  at  all,  indeed,  without  some  help 
from  that  same  Spirit  which  gave  hun  utterance.  He  be- 
longed to  a  race,  ethnologically  and  individually,  to  whom 
it  was  given  to  live  in  the  future,  in  the  golden  age  to 
come. 

The  Hebrews  were  a  nation  of  proj)hets.  Distant  times 
and  ages  were  their  goal  and  appointed  rest,  and  they 
pressed  as  travellers  through  the  present,  and  looked  for 
the  "city  which  hath  foundations."  So  thoroughly  this 
imaginativeness  of  character  pervaded  not  only  the  lan- 
guage of  the  prox)hets,  but  the  historians  too  ;  so  habitually 
the  imaginative  and  not  the  logical  faculty  dictated  the  laws 
of  Hebrew  grammar,  that,  "  It  hath  come  to  pass"  refers 
always  to  a  future  event.  It  was  thus  that  Isaiah  was 
"  rapt  into  f ature  times,"  and  sees  the  throne  of  the  Lord 
of  Israel  estabhshed  in  sovereignty  over  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  and  sees  all  the  peoples  becoming  willing  sub- 
jects to  Him,  and  friendly  citizens  to  each  other.  He  sees 
true  hberty  when  aU  submit  themselves  to  Him  whose  ser- 
vice is  perfect  freedom  ;  and  the  happiness  and  welfare  of 
aU  is  to  be  secured,  not  by  some  new  result  of  civilization, 
but  by  carrying  out  God's  original  purpose  and  plan  ;  that 
the  Jews  should  be  ministers  of  truth  to  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  who  in  them  should  be  blessed ;  that  "  out  of 
Zion  should  go  the  law,  and  the  word  of  the  law  from  Jer- 
usalem." He  expounds  the  vocation  of  the  Hebrew  people. 
He  holds  up  the  master-light  to  guide  to  all  right  action 
when  he  says,  "  O  house  of  Jacob,  come  ye,  and  let  us  walk 
in  the  light  of  the  Lord  !"  This  concreteness  of  the  imag- 
ination makes  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  one. 

Sir  Edward  Strachey*  has  given   a  conception   of  the 

■^  In  a  most  instructive  and  delightful  book  ;  Hebrew  Politics  in 
the  Times  of  Sargon  and  Sennacherib ;  an  Inquiry  into  the  Jlis- 
iorical  Meaning  and  Purpose  of  the  Prophecies  of  Isaiah,  etc.,  1853. 


8o        Lamps^  etc.^  in  the  Jewish  Church. 

youthful  Isaiah  entering  upon  his  mission  and  ministry, 
"in  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died,"  with  considerable 
beauty  and  freshness.  At  no  period,  probably,  after  the 
decay  and  destruction  of  its  original  majesty  by  Shishak, 
was  the  temple  more  magnificent  than  then.  The  youthful 
prophet  is  beheld  in  his  rough  hair  or  woollen  garment — 
possibly  not  unhke  the  Capuchin  friar  in  the  streets  of 
Rome — going  up  to  the  temple  to  worship.  It  is  very 
necessary,  to  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  prophet,  that  we 
also  obtain  a  distinct  view  of  the  Temple  of  that  age ;  its 
ample  courts  and  colonnades,  and  its  porch  with  high  spire- 
hke  front ;  its  holy  house,  or  holy  of  holies  ;  its  well-x3ro- 
portioned,  elaborate  workmanship,  massive,  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  Coptic  peoples.  Across  the  variegated  pavement 
the  youthful  prophet  steps,  between  the  tall  pillars  which 
Solomon  reared — Jachin  and  Boaz — whose  magnificent  pro- 
portions especially  reminded  the  worshippers  that  the  king- 
dom was  established  by  God,  and  the  constitution  He 
ordained  would  be  u]3held  by  Him.  Isaiah's  eye  rested 
on  the  molten  sea,  borne  upon  the  backs  of  the  twelve 
oxen,  with  its  beautiful  floral  ornaments  of  lilies  and 
pomegranates,  with  its  smaller  lavers  resting  on  wheels, 
ornamented  with  oxen,  Hons,  cherubim,  and  palm-trees. 
Beyond,  before  him,  his  eye  beheld  the  great  brazen  altar 
of  burnt  offering,  with  its  never  extinguished  fire,  and,  over- 
head, the  roof  of  thick  cedar  beams,  resting  on  rows  of  col- 
umns. Isaiah  would  see  through  the  open  folding-doors  of 
cypress,  carved  with  cherubim,  and  palm-trees,  and  open 
flowers,  and  covered  with  gold  upon  the  carved  work,  into 
the  holy  place,  whither,  not  being  a  priest,  most  probably 
he  could  not  enter.  The  Hght  of  the  golden  lamps  on 
either  side  would  show  him  the  cedar  paneUing  of  the 
walls,  carved  with  knobs  and  open  flowers,  cherubim,  and 
palm-trees,  festooned  with  chain-work  and  richly  gilt ;  the 
mosaics  of  precious  stones,  the  cypress  floor,  the  altar  of 


Isaiah^ s  Vision  in  the  Temple,  8 1 

incense,  the  table  mth  the  shew-bread ;  and,  amidst  the 
interfulgent  :flashings,  radiating  from  the  solemn  gloom  of 
the  gorgeous  furniture,  would  be  distinguished  the  veil  of 
blue,  and  purple,  and  crimson,  and  fine  linen,  embroidered 
with  the  cherubim,  symbol  of  the  awful  presence  and  un- 
approachable majesty  of  the  King,  the  Lord  of  hosts. 
Amidst  such  scenes  we  may  conceive  the  young  prophet 
bowed  and  rapt  into  the  thought  of  Him  "  whom  the  heaven 
and  the  heaven  of  heavens  could  not  contaui."  And  then 
across  his  soul  would  sweep  the  memories  of  that  house. 
In  the  midst  of  a  blaze  of  magnificence  and  pomp,  faded 
now,  Solomon  knelt  and  prayed  on  the  brazen  scaffold,  near 
the  altar,  "kneeling  upon  his  knees  before  all  the  congre- 
gation of  Israel,  and  spreading  forth  his  hands  to  heaven  ;" 
renewing  the  national  covenant  with  the  Lord,  the  God  of 
Israel,  and  receiving  His  ratification  in  "  the  cloud  that  filled 
the  house."  In  that  house  the  hushed  tramp  of  the  men 
of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  returning  from  battle  had  been 
heard,  when,  with  harps,  and  psalteries,  and  trumpets,  they 
came  into  the  house  of  the  Lord  to  celebrate  their  victories. 
Down  the  sacred  courts  of  that  house  had  rushed  the  hosts 
of  the  fierce  invaders  when  they  broke  down  its  carved 
work,  its  hallowed  imagery,  and  destroyed,  or  carried  away 
its  sacred  things.  In  that  house  stood  Jehoida  and  pro- 
claimed the  young  king  Joash,  while  the  youth  "  stood  in 
the  midst  of  the  people  at  his  pillar,"  as  the  manner  was ; 
and  there  the  murderess,  Queen  Athaliah,  shrieked, 
"  Treason !  Treason !"  while  all  the  people  shouted,  "  God 
save  the  King !"  Deep  in  the  patriot-soul  these  things  were 
fused  and  glorified  by  the  mingled  fires  of  genius,  and  piety, 
and  inspiration.  Aspirations  and  ideahzations  rising  over 
all,  the  youthful  seer,  with  his  imagination  kindled  and  cul- 
tivated, prepared  by  purifying  and  burning  powers  within, 
there  he  sat.  Through  him  God  would  speak.  He  would 
lead  His  people  into  a  knowledge  of  His  will,  of  Himfself, 
4* 


82        LampSy  etc.^  in  iJie  Jewish  Gliurclu 

and  His  love,  by  qualifying  His  messenger.  God  can,  it  is 
true,  speak  through  instruments  all  unconscious  of  His  de- 
signs— Caesars,  or  Napoleons,  whiilwinds,  or  earthquakes — 
but  not  so  when  He  intends  to  lead  to  a  knowledge  of  Him- 
self. "  Horn  this  could  be,  how  God  reveals  His  mind  and 
will  to  men,  how  the  poetic  or  other  human  faculty  gives 
form  and  expression  to  truths  not  imagined  or  discovered, 
but  communicated  from  on  high,  this  can  never  be  ex- 
plained. 

An  explanation  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  an  assertion 
that  the  infinite  is  definable,  that  the  superhuman  is  subject 
to  the  laws,  and  expressible  in  the  terms  of  the  human." 
How,  we  know  not,  but  in  some  way,  Isaiah  was  qualified  ; 
and  the  moment  when  his  mission  became  known  to  him- 
self, seems  to  have  been  in  the  temple  "  in  the  year  when 
King  Uzziah  died."  The  throng  of  worshippers  had  left 
the  courts ;  the  chanting  in  alternate  parts  of  the  choirs  of 
singers,  clothed  in  white  linen,  would  have  died  into  silence  ; 
other  devout  Israelites  were  praying  apart ;  and  white- 
robed  priests,  silently  presenting  their  prayers  in  the  fra- 
grant cloud  of  incense  which  rose  from  the  golden  altars  in 
the  holy  place,  and  the  stillness  and  solemnity  of  the  scene 
rather  heightened  than  disturbed  ;  "  then,"  says  Sir  Edward 
Strachey,  "  the  veil  of  the  Temple  was  withdrawn,  and  the 
holy  of  holies  discovered  to  the  projohet's  eyes,  and  he  saw 
the  Lord  sitting  as  a  king  upon  His  throne,  actually  govern- 
ing and  judging.  His  train,  the  symbol  of  dignity  and 
glory,  filled  the  holy  place  ;  while  around  Him  hovered  the 
attendant  seraphim,  spirits  of  purity,  zeal,  and  love,  chant- 
ing in  alternate  choirs  the  holiness  of  their  Lord  :  the 
threshold  vibrated  with  the  sound,  and  the  'white  cloud' 
of  the  Divine  presence,  as  if  descending  to  mmgle  itseK 
with  the  ascending  incense  of  prayer,  filled  the  house.  The 
eternal  archetypes  of  the  Hebrew's  symbohc  worship  were 
revealed  to  Isaiah  ;  and,  as  the  centre  of  them  all,  his  eyes 


Tlie  Burdens  of  Isaiah  Typical.         8  3 

saw  the  King,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  of  whom  the  actual  rulers 
from  David  to  Uzziah  had  been  but-  the  temporary  and  sub- 
ordinate viceroys.  In  that  presence,  even  the  spirits  of  the 
fire,  which  consumes  all  impurities  while  none  can  mix  with 
it,  cover  then*  faces  and  their  feet,  conscious  that  they  are 
not  pure  in  God's  sight,  but  justly  chargeable  with  hnper- 
fection  :  and  much  more  does  Isaiah  shrink  from  the 
aspiring  thoughts  he  had  hitherto  entertained  of  his  fitness 
to  be  the  preacher  of  that  God  to  his  countrymen  ;  he,  a 
man  of  unclean  lips,  sharing  the  uncleanliness  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  dwells.  In  utter  self-abasement  he  realizes 
the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin  and  the  utter  separation  it 
makes  between  man  and  the  holy  God."* 

Thus  the  meaning  of  his  mission  broke  upon  the  youthful 
prophet's  soul,  and  he  was  fitted  to  develop  the  principles 
of  eternal  truth  in  their  relation  to  the  Church,  and  the 
nations.  Hence  there  is  the  burden  of  Babylon,  the  doom  of 
the  empire  of  force :  m  the  mountains  to  the  north  of  Baby- 
lon is  heard  the  hum  of  a  great  multitude  ;  the  northern 
nations  gathering  to  battle,  mustered  by  the  Lord  of  hosts 
himself.  Babylon  represented  the  reign  of  mere  power,  and 
by  power  it  is  to  be  overcome.  "  A  man  will  be  more  pre- 
cious than  fine  gold  ;"  for  the  Medes  care  not  for  gold — 
they  were  for  blood.  The  Lord  had  declared  that  he  would 
lay  waste  the  vineyard  of  His  own  people  ;  but  of  Babylon 
He  declares  that  it  shall  not  even  be  a  pastui'e-ground  ;  the 
Arab,  w^andering  tlu"ough  the  desert,  shall  shun  it,  shall 
leave  its  palaces  and  pavilions  to  the  owls,  and  the  wolves, 
and  the  satyrs  that  shall  dance  there,  and  the  wild  beasts 
of  the  islands  that  shall  cry  in  those  desolate  places,  and 
the  dragons  in  their  palaces.  And  then  foUows  that  ode — 
which  has  been  pronounced  the  finest  of  its  kind  extant  in 
any  language — a  song  of  triumph  in  the  form  of  a  dirge, 

*  Sir  Edward  Strachey's  Hebrew  Politics,  pp.  78,  79. 


84        Lam])s^  etc.^  in  the  Jewish  Church. 

involving  an  undercurrent  of  sarcasm  and  irony  :  "The 
whole  earth  is  at  rest  and  quiet  ;  they  break  forth  into 
singing — fir-trees  and  cedar-trees  break  forth  into  smging  ; 
while  hell  from  beneath,  the  unseen  world  of  gloom,  is 
stirred  to  receive  the  new  inhabitants.  The  shadowy  forms 
of  giant  kings,  the  pale  and  mighty  spectres,  rise  to  gxeet 
their  brothers,  now  become  weak  as  the}^"  Through  this 
doom,  as  through  the  rents  in  a  ruin,  shines  the  Divine 
pm'pose,  the  righteousness  of  Divine  intentions  ;  in  the 
doom  of  Babylon,  and  the  analogous  doom  of  Moab,  the  re- 
trihidijon  of  lawless  force  ;  and  fixes  and  expounds,  with  great 
interest,  the  Bible  statement  of  the  law  of  political  society 
and  its  relation  to  foreign  conquest. 

We  have  the  burden  of  Egypt ;  the  doom  of  craft  and  false 
wisdom.  Here  the  prophet  had  to  encounter  the  pohtical 
wisdom  and  inflated  sagacity  of  his  own  tunes  ;  and  liis  de- 
nunciations of  Egyptian  alliances  occur  repeatedly  through 
the  book.  "  Woe  to  them  that  go  down  to  Egypt  for  help  ; 
and  stay  on  horses,  and  trust  in  chariots,  for  they  are  many  ; 
and  in  horsemen,  for  they  are  very  strong.  But  they  look 
not  unto  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  neither  seek  the  Lord. 
Yet  He  also  is  wise.  The  Eg^^ptians  are  men,  and  not 
God ;  and  their  horses  flesh,  and  not  spirit."  In  Egypt 
there  was  no  national  unity  or  national  purity.  The  one 
was  absent  because  the  other  was  absent.  Among  a  multi- 
tude of  idols  and  hereditary  castes  it  was  impossible  that 
either  could  be  developed  ;  but  priestcraft  and  statecraft, 
these  "controlled  a  population  aggregated  like  herds  of 
cattle,  but  debased,  and  therefore  isolated  as  men."  The 
denunciations  of  Isaiah  in  reference  to  Egypt  were  esj)ecially 
pohtical;  but  " the  vision  was  sealed."  "Where  there  is 
no  vision,"  no  sacred  insight,  "the  people  jperish."  Isaiah 
had  to  suffer  the  punishment  of  all  those  who  stand  by  trae 
insight,  and  oppose  naeye  state  and  worldly  craft.  The 
ecstasy  of  dehverance  from  Egypt  is  described  in  language 


Tlie  Burdens  of  Isaiah  Typical.  85 

which,  no  doubt,  is  intended  to  suggest  the  dehverance  of 
Israel  of  old  from  their  enslaved  alliance  to  ancient  craft 
and  cruelty.  "  Ye  shall  have  a  song  as  in  the  night,  when 
a  holy  solemnity  is  kept ;  and  gladness  of  heart,  as  when 
one  goeth  with  a  pipe  to  come  into  the  mountain  of  the 
Lord,  to  the  Eock  of  Israel." 

And  there  was  the  burden  of  Tyre,  the  doom  of  unhallowed 
commerce.  Tyre  was  the  lady  of  kingdoms,  a  "  joyous  city, 
whose  antiquity  is  of  ancient  days  ;"  but  who  should  fall 
"because  the  Lord  of  hosts  had  purposed  to  stain  the 
pride  of  all  glory,  and  to  bring  into  contempt  all  the  honor- 
able of  the  earth."  She,  whose  ungodly  and  tyrannic,  and 
cruel  prowess  had  given,  for  the  gains  of  her  trade  and 
merchandise,  the  gods  and  groves,  the  altars  and  furnaces 
of  Baalitish  worship,  she  should  exclaim,  "Howl  ye  ships 
of  Tarshish,  for  your  strength  is  laid  waste."  All  these 
burdens  are  most  evidently  illustrations  of  principles  in 
themselves.  The  doom  which  fell  on  the  nations,  as  I  have 
already  intimated,  copiously  illustrates  Isaiah's  exuberance 
of  imagination,  and  love  of  concreteness,  exhibited  by  such 
expressions  as  "  desert  of  the  sea,"  ''  the  vaUey  of  vision," 
*'  the  land  shadowing  with  wings,"  "  Ariel,  the  city  where 
David  dwelt."  But  there  was  far  more  than  artistic  and 
ideal  concreteness  ;  there  was  moral  concreteness.  And 
the  various  visions  of  the  book  of  this  prophecy  become,  as 
in  aU  the  books  of  Scripture,  shadowed  by  awful  but  faintly 
descried  wings.  Hence  the  message  they  bear  down  to  our 
times. 

But  for  this  they  would  be  history  and  poetry,  and 
no  more.  But  they  are  weighty  and  eternal  truths.  Tyre, 
and  Babylon,  and  Egypt  existed.  It  was  not  an  arbitrary 
destruction  that  swept  them  away.  Their  doom  followed 
upon  their  departure  from  eternal  and  immutable  truth,  and 
equity  ;  and  wherever  such  departure  is  now,  the  same 
consequences  follow  ;  and  like  causes  will  ever  anticipate 


86       LampSj  etc,^  in  the  Jewish  Church. 

like  effects.     Isaiah,  thus  read,  becomes,  in  truth,  a  very 
stern  and  terrible  book. 

And  this  is  also  true  of  the  Church.  The  government  of 
God  is  especially  shown  in  the  denunciations  against,  and 
the  wasting  of,  Judea.  History  declares  the  governmetn 
of  the  providence  of  God.  Even  Niebuhr,  as  quoted  by 
Sir  Edward  Strachey,  has  remarked,  that  "  there  are  oc- 
casional jDoints  of  time  at  which  the  whole  course  of  history, 
and  the  fates  of  nations,  is  decided  by  some  event  which 
does  not  grow  necessarily  out  of  previous  events,  and  which 
a  reasonable  man  csm  only  explain  by  referruig  to  the  pro- 
vidence of  God  ;"  and  Strachey  remarks : 

Mr.  Grote,  on  the  other  hand,  recognizes,  but  leaves  unex- 
plained, such  master-events  of  history.  He  points  out,  that  if 
Darius  had  not — contrary  to  probable  expectation — delayed  the 
first  Persian  invasion  till  the  Greeks  had  had  twenty  years  for 
efficient  preparations,  and  Greece,  such  as  it  has  been  to  the 
world,  would  never  have  existed  ;  and  he  draws  the  general  in- 
ference, "  that  the  history  of  any  nation,  considered  as  a  sequence 
of  causes  and  efiects  affording  applicable  knowledge,  requires  us 
to  study  not  merely  real  events,  but  also  imminent  contin- 
gencies :"  but  there  he  stops.  And  when  Mebuhr  takes  me  a 
step  further,  and  shows  me  a  "  cause  affording  applicable  know- 
ledge," where  Mr.  Grote  only  indicated  an  unexplained  "  effect," 
I  must  think  that  Mebuhr's  is  the  more  completely  positive 
criticism — criticism  which  takes  scientific  cognizance  of  all  the 
facts.  I  could  not  hear  an  explanation  of  all  the  facts.  I  could 
not  hear  an  explanation  of  the  complicated  workings  of  a  steam- 
engine,  with  arrangements  for  supplying  its  own  water,  oiling 
its  own  wheels,  changing  vertical  to  horizontal  movements,  and 
so  on,  and  at  last  admit,  that  when  the  hand  of  the  ever-watch- 
ful engineer  did  occasionally  intervene  to  give  the  machine  some 
new  application,  or  to  prevent  some  hideous  crash,  this  was  an 
inexplicable  occurrence — much  less  pass  it  in  silence,  as  though 
its  explanation  had  no  interest  to  a  rational  man. 


Development  of  Isaictlian  Ideas.  87 

Hence  the  study  of  history  is,  in  a  more  especial  sense 
than  even  the  study  of  nature  itself,  the  study  of  God  and 
theology,  because  it  is  the  study  of  moral  characteristics. 
It  is  no  doubt  true,  that  for  a  long  time  force  and  craft, 
and  mere  commerce  using  these  two,  do  seem  to  be  the 
most  powerful  and  conquering  of  sph'its  ;  so  have  they  al- 
ways appeared  ;  for  there  is  a  mysterious  power  in  "  the 
god  of  this  world,"  by  which  he  seems  well  able  to  help 
his  own.  But  things  are  understood  in  the  sanctuary  which 
cannot  be  understood  elsewhere  ;  and  in  the  light  of  the 
Church,  and  Church  principles,  many  dark  things  are 
comprehended.  No  doubt,  in  order  to  comprehend,  we 
have  to  "  consider  the  years  of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most 
High  ;"  and  hence,  too,  the  study  of  the  sins  and  the 
punishment  of  Israel  becomes  as  instructive  as  the  study  of 
Divine  judgments  in  heathen  nations. 

Such  is  the  elucidation  of  the  Isaiahan  ideas,  and  can*y- 
ing  them  forward  to  the  close  we  read  the  Divine  intention 
of  the  prophet  as  made  more  clear  to  himself,  from  "  the 
years  that  bring  the  philosophic  mind  ;"  for  there  can  be 
little  doubt  of  the  true  unity  pervading  the  whole  chap- 
ters of  the  prophecy — when  the  glow  of  his  earlier  ex- 
pectations and  hope  had  faded  away — the  human  and  finite 
ideals  of  his  youth,  the  fruits  of  his  own  ministry,  and 
Hezeldah's  reign — when  these  had  died  down  hke  the  flower 
of  the  field,  then  we  may  conceive  him,  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Petrine  expression,  searching  "  what  and  what  manner  of 
time  the  Spirit  within  hun  signified  ; "  and  then  rose  more 
clearly  before  him  that  which  is  even  the  design  and  idea  of 
the  whole  book, — God's  government  of  Israel  and  of  man- 
kind, according  to  the  laws  which  He  has  given  for  all  their 
relations  to  Himself  and  to  each  other.  But  this  is  most 
noticeable,  that  in  the  first  portion  of  the  book  he  is  always 
seekmg  for  and  setting  forth  this  idea  in  the  events  of  his 
own  times,  but  in  the  second  he  rises  to  contemplate  the 


88        Lam])s^  etc,^  in  the  Jewish  Church. 

idea  itseK,  and  only  embodies  it  in  such  shadowy  anticipa- 
tions as  to  the  outward  form  of  the  glorious  but  indefinite 
future,  as  his  poetic  imagination  can  project  from  the  facts 
and  probabihties  of  his  own  time.  Hence  the  true  glory  of 
the  prophecy  heightens  and  brightens  at  the  close.  Of  all 
the  highest  flights  of  poetry,  humanly  and  even  Divinely  in- 
spired, perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  there  is  a 
reach  of  splendor,  a  tenderness  of  pathos,  a  range  of  con- 
solatory rest  and  thought,  touched  in  the  fortieth  chapter 
of  this  prophecy  alone  :  infinite  is  the  tenderness  of  that 
voice  which  sighs  over  the  wrecks  of  human  things, — 
"  The  grass  withereth,  the  flower  fadeth  ; "  and  mighty  is 
that  other  voice  which  rebukes  the  sigh, — "  The  word  of 
our  God  endureth  for  ever;"  never,  we  suppose,  by  any 
other  voice,  was  there  so  human  and  so  overwhelming  an 
appeal. made  to  the  heavenly  bodies, — "Lift  up  your  eyes 
on  high,  and  behold  who  hath  created  these  things.  He 
bringeth  forth  their  hosts  by  number.  For  that  he  is 
strong  in  power  ;  not  one  faileth  ; "  and  he  is  the  God  of 
human  spirits,  the  sustainer  of  human  souls.  These  were 
the  meditations  of  the  old  man,  disappointed  and  perse- 
cuted, and  preparing  for  the  martyr's  crown  at  the  close  of 
his  long  day  of  faithfulness.  The  thought,  too,  of  the  Ee- 
deemer,  and  the  perception  of  the  region  in  which  to 
look  for  Him,  brightens  amongst  the  last  chapters.  The 
introduction  of  the  true  Redeemer  comes  now  with  amaz- 
ing force  and  beauty,  after  the  voice  which  was  heard  ex- 
claiming, "  Keep  silence  before  me,  O  islands  ; "  and  that 
bitter  irony  in  which  the  silence  is  only  broken  with  the 
sounds  of  the  carpenter's  plane,  the  goldsmith's  hammer, 
and  the  blacksmith's  anvil,  all  manufacturing  their  gods. 
Then  from  the  calm  of  contemplation  the  old  prophetic 
heat  of  prophecy  glows  through  his  soul  iii  all  its  most 
ancient  strength,  and  more  than  its  ancient  tenderness,  and 
gorgeousness,  and  beauty,  till  God  the   Redeemer  rises 


Development  of  Isaialian  Ideas,  89 

through  the  hallowing  airs  of  prophecy,  and  inspiration, 
and  song.  Here,  then,  for  the  fii'st  time,  is  seen  most 
clearly  "  the  design  conceived  in  the  eternal  mind  of  God 
Himself,  of  which  the  declaration  and  explanation  is  called 
His  1007'd ;  the  actual  realization  of  the  design  His  work ; 
the  various  processes  by  which  He  is  effecting  that  reahza- 
tion, — the  operation  of  His  hands  ;  "  and  the  ultimate  end  of 
the  whole  is  named, — the  glory  of  God ;  "  It  is  seen  that 
"  God  the  Lord,  the  Creator  of  the  ends  of  the  earth,"  has, 
from  the  beginning,  planned,  and  brought  into  operation,  a 
moral,  pohtical,  spiritual  constitution  and  order,  as  well  as 
a  physical  world  ;  and  that  He  has  chosen  one  nation  for 
the  first  embodiment  and  illustration  of  the  design,  and  to 
be  the  main  instrument  for  carrying  it  out  to  all  other  na- 
tions, and  uniting  them  in  universal  brotherhood,  providing 
also  an  adequate  Kedeemer  and  Guide  ;  "  that  the  work 
extends  over  all  ages  of  time,  employs  races  as  well  as 
individuals,  and  is,  in  the  main,  spmtual,  and  the  work  of 
God  Himself." 

I  have  dwelt  thus  at  length  upon  the  character  of  Isaiah, 
and  the  power  of  the  j)reacher,  as  illustrated  in  the  Hebrew 
prophet,  because,  as  the  Bible  furnishes  the  subject  matter 
of  the  preacher's  burden,  so  it  also  famishes  the  best  illus- 
trations of  the  method  the  preacher  should  adopt.  To  be  a 
close  student  of  these  prophets,  to  study  them  in  the  light 
of  the  ever-recurring,  ever-varying  experience  of  man,  it 
becomes  the  duty  of  the  minister  to  constantly  notice  how 
truly  their  words  represent  national  conditions,  with  all 
their  sins  and  all  their  grand  national  characteristics  ; 
every  form  of  speech  that  can  seize  immediately  upon 
human  souls  like  the  immediateness  of  hght,  aU  present 
some  new  aspect  of  dealing  with  man  ;  but  Isaiah  seems 
to  comprehend  aU  in  the  wonderful  variety,  and  breadth, 
and  insight  to  which  we  have  copiously  referred.  It  is  at 
once  the  apocalypse  and  the  parable  of  the  whole  scheme 


go        Lamps,  etc,  in  the  Jewish  Churcli, 

of  Providence,  of  the  dealings  of  God  with  the  consciences 
of  men  in  every  age,  in  every  nation.  It  is  history  in  the 
hght  of  its  divine  idea.  It  is  the  soul  in  the  hght  of  its  di- 
vine relationships.  It  is  religion  beneath  the  light  of 
sacrificial  and  Messianic  hopes. 


Pulpit  Monographs. 
I. — The  Apostolic  Age  :     Paul. 


AUL  is,  no  doubt,  the  epic  hero  of  the  Christian 
Church — of  course,  wholly  leaving  out  of  all 
such  thoughts  and  analogies  the  Divine  Head 
of  the  Church — then  Paul  is  the  greatest  human 
embodiment  of  its  life,  activity  and  truth.  He,  as  a  type, 
seems  at  once  Augustine  and  St.  Bernard,  Luther  and  Vin- 
cent de  Paul,  of  the  best  and  purest  minds  of  the  Mediae- 
val Church,  the  heroism  of  the  Eeformation  and  of  Puri- 
tanism. John  Knox,  Samuel  Eutherford,  and  Eichard 
Baxter  seem  to  be  faint  reproductions  of  him.  At  times, 
he  looks  like  Hooker,  or  like  Herbert.  He  changes  again 
into  a  quaint,  all-knowing  preacher,  hke  Latimer,  and  surely 
has  all  the  ubiquitousness,  and  a  thousand-fold  more,  of 
Wesley.  We  stiU  miss  from  our  hbraries  the  kind  of  work 
which  might  inflame  and  bear  on  the  spirit  of  the  reader, 
as  a  portrait  of  this  marvellous  man — "least  of  aU  the 
apostles,  not  meet  to  be  called  an  apostle  ; "  as  he  styled 
himself ;  "  one  bom  out  of  due  time."  Sure  I  am,  that  if 
there  be  a  magnetic  power  in  great  lives — in  the  reahzation 
of  their  fulness,  their  freshness,  their  glorious  self-abandon- 
ment, their  heroic  strength,  daring,  clearness  of  vision,  and 
agility  of  movement — then,  the  more  the  life  of  Paul  is 
studied,  the  more  the  proportions  of  the  greatness  of  this 

(91) 


9  2  Pidpit  Monogra])lis  :   Paid. 

princely  crusader  rise  to  the  eye,  the  more  Tvdll  his  conver- 
sion, his  appearance  in  the  Church  just  then,  and  all  that 
he  was,  and  all  that  he  did,  seem  to  partake  of  the  miracu- 
lous. There  is  room  for  another  HorcE  Paulince,  and  bearing 
a  different  intention  to  that  yigorous  piece  of  shrewd  analy- 
sis ;  while  it  is  not  possible  that  the  acts  of  this  Apostle 
should  be  read,  and  the  words  of  his  Epistles  compared 
with  them,  without  the  mind  of  the  reader  becoming  at  first 
insensibly,  but  presently  sensibly,  imbued  with  the  influence 
and  sphit  of  this  gxeat  master-mind  and  heart.  We  are 
surprised  that  our  hterature  bears  so  httle  of  biographic 
illustration  to  the  memory  of  Paul ;  the  materials  are  not 
wanting,  and  they  illustrate  those  words  which  have  been 
at  once  the  sustaining  food  of  the  souls  of  highest  and 
holiest  men,  and  the  debatable  grounds  or  battle-cries  of 
polemics  of  theologic  warriors. 

I  have  sometimes  thought,  that  even  not  excepting  the 
life  of  Chi'ist,  a  sceptical  mind  would  be  more  Hkely  to  yield, 
give  way,  and  be  prostrate  before  the  hfe  of  Paul,  than  be- 
fore any  other  presentation.  Christ  was  His  own  evidence, 
and  still  beyond  any  other,  Christ  is  His  own  evidence  ; 
still.  He  was  seK-sustained ;  his  mind,  whatever  that  awful 
mystery  may  mean,  or  be,  seems  so  separated  and  apart 
from  human  and  calculable  motives  and  reasons  ;  nothing 
external  of  argument  or  circumstance  pressed  Him  into  a 
course.  Coarse  Infidehty  and  EationaHsm  say,  "  He  was  a 
wondrous  fanatic !  a  subhme  mystic  !  and  there  the  matter 
ends  ! "  He  had  altogether  a  new,  almost  unhuman,  and 
inappreciable  way,  both  of  looking  at,  and  presenting  Di- 
vine things  ;  mappreciable,  excepting  to  those  to  whom,  by 
the  "  mind  of  the  Spirit,"  is  given  "  the  mind  of  Chi^ist." 
Then,  with  impudent  audacity,  the  myth-theory  has  been 
invented  to  account  for  what  cannot  be  disproved — the  un- 
accountableness  of  Christ.  His  impregnabihty  to  all 
human  reasons ;  so  that  every  attempt  to  make  Him  out, 


The  Greatest  Hero  of  the  ChuTch         g  n 

upon  human  principles,  turns  to  foolishness  ;  while  it  is  the 
glory  of  the  believer,  it  is  the  difficulty  of  the  skeptic,  who 
comes,  determined  to  admit  no  supernatural  fact  into  his 
estimate  of  that  life  and  its  results.  All  this  is  very  unhke 
what  meets  us  in  Paul. 

The  life  of  him  we  have  here  called  the  greatest  hero  of 
the  Church,  in  all  its  expressions  justifies  that  human  de- 
signation ;  a  high  and  princely  type  of  man,  he  looks  in 
all  the  principles,  motives,  and  relationships  of  his  life, 
perfectly  manly  ;  passion  and  reason  contended  in  him  for 
mastery.  "We  are  ceiiain,  not  only  from  the  build  and  ar- 
chitecture of  his  character  throughout  hfe,  but  from  what 
is  implied  as  belonging  to  him  before  conversion,  that  it 
must  have  been  a  most  overwhelming  evidence  which  could 
have  carried  Ais  convictions  captive.  Rare  have  been  the 
instances,  if  any,  which  combined  a  character  in  such  equal, 
not  to  say  marvellous,  proportions,  the  processes  of  a 
careful,  slow,  but  accumulating  logical  faculty,  with  such 
a  triumphant  wing  of  the  mystical  and  the  imaginative,  and 
all  fused  in  the  fires  of  a  dominant,  grasping,  and  far- 
reaching  passion  ;  or,  say  rather,  ardent  spiritual  affection. 

This  man  talks  like  a  mystic,  but  he  also  talks  Hke  a  bar- 
rister. The  close  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans,  in 
which  occur  forms  of  expression  over  which  the  minds  of 
Dionysius,  or  Everard,  hover  with  delight,  is  the  triumph- 
ant termination  of  a  chain  of  reasoning,  so  closely  plaited, 
and  flawlessly  interhnked,  that  it  commands  the  apposite 
admiration  of  such  abstract  thinkers  as  Jonathan  Edwards. 
Was  there  anything  fanatical  in  this  man  ?  Then  every 
man  is  a  fanatic  who  is  a  whole  nature,  self-devoted  to  one 
great  absorbing  passion,  or  thought,  which  becomes  to  him, 
idea,  imagination,  affection,  and  ambition.  Paul,  human 
as  he  is,  becomes  humanly  as  unaccountable  as  his  Master, 
tried  by  any  prmciple  but  that  true  one  which  he  gives  as 
the  turning-point,  and  henceforth  the  great  intention  of  his 


94  Pulpit  Monographs :  Paul. 

life, — "  a  light  above  the  brightness  of  the  sun  at  mid-day ! " 
"a  voice," — "I  am  Jesus,  whom  thou  persecutest," — the 
blindness — the  scales  falling  from  the  eyes.  "  Henceforth 
for  me  to  live  is  '  Christ ! '  " 

I  dare  to  say  that  Kationahsm  has  never  given,  and  can 
give  no  account  of  such  a  phenomenon.  It  is  trifling  with 
truth  to  attempt  to  refine  upon  the  story ;  but  thus  much 
seems  distinctly  to  emerge.  The  conversion  of  Augustine, 
such  a  man  as  he  was,  is  an  infinite  perplexity  ;  infidelity 
finds  itself  dumb  to  any  satisfactory  reply,  even  in  the  story 
of  the  great  African  Bishop,  whose  learned,  and  ample,  and 
vast  mind  has  more  or  less  influenced  all  Christian  thought 
from  his  century  to  this  hour.  But  whence  did  this  great 
master  derive  his  satisfactions — his  Hfe — liis  writings? 
What  are  they  all  but  commentaries  upon  portions  of 
Paxil  ?  And  Augustine  himself  was  but  a  ^nciJl  portion  of 
Paul — the  contemplative  portion,  separated  from  that  life 
of  protracted  intensity  and  toil,  passed  in  tent-making  in 
Corinth — "  bound  with  this  chain  "  in  Kome — in  Elijah-like 
communion,  we  may  believe,  with  the  first  aspects  of  Chris- 
tian truth  in  Arabia — "  waiting  "  and  using  the  season  for 
preaching  to  the  wits  and  sophists  of  Athens — in  every 
Mnd  of  peiil,  as  he  recites  himseK,  in  the  wilderness  and 
on  the  sea ;  everywhere,  like  a  wonderful  general,  master 
of  the  circumstance  and  of  the  hour — everywhere  with 
wonderful  agility,  seeking  not  to  be  satisfied  "  with  another 
man's  line  of  things,  but  to  preach "  in  the  "  nations  be- 
yond." Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  ;  first  bearer  of  the  Gos- 
pel, possibly,  probably,  to  Spain  and  these  Isles ;  with 
attributes  of  mind  steeping  him  in  that  delicious  ecstasy  of 
soul  which  contemplative  spirits  so  well  know  ;  and  know- 
ing, do  not  resist,  but  cultivate,  when  all  feehngs  and  fac- 
ulties are  absorbed  and  "  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  " 
of  indescribable  sights,  and  speecUess  sounds ;  and  yet, 
with  a  nature  so  plain  and  practical,  that  as  soon  as  he 


Intense  Ardor  and  Cliaracter.  g^ 

awoke  from  the  trance,  he  plunged  among  the  ordinary- 
things  of  every-day  Hfe,  and  seems  by  his  allusions  to  have 
been  f amihar  with  every  kind  of  walk  and  work — ^the  trans- 
actions of  trade,  and  the  courses  of  pleasure,  and  uniting 
all  in  the  singleness  of  aim.  The  story  of  his  life  reveals, 
whether  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  or  his  own  Epistles, 
"  this  one  thing  I  do  " — '"  All  things  are  dross,  that  I  may 
win  Clirist  and  be  found  of  Him."  I  repeat  it,  this  man  is 
as  unaccountable  as  his  Master.  Bits  of  him  may  be  traced, 
some  lesser  activity,  like  His  ;  some  lesser  evangelic  fervor, 
but  like  His  ;  some  lesser  contemplative  fervor,  but  like 
His,  may  have  appeared  here  and  there  in  different  epochs 
and  ages  of  the  Church  ;  also  martyr-like  cndiirance  and 
long  and  faithful  confession.  But  for  the  whole  entire 
man,  we  may  safely  challenge  the  history  of  the  world  and 
the  Church  to  produce  the  counterpart  of  Paul.  His 
words  tingle  through  us  still.  What  requiem  equals  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the  first  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  ?  What  rapture,  the  eighth  chapter  of  Ro- 
mans !  What  a  grand  resume  of  contemplation,  the  Ephe- 
sians !  What  felicitous  and  subtle  strokes  of  lightning- 
hke  expressions  in  the  Colossians !  It  avails  httle  to  us 
that  criticism  cannot  prove  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  to 
be  his.  We  know  it  must  be  his.  We  feel  Paul  in  every 
line.  It  is  all  along  his  grand  logic  on  fire !  his  accumula- 
ting crowd  of  images ! — until  they  all  rush  together  in  their 
fiery  pomp  and  illumination,  at  the  close,  in  the  altogether 
unparalleled  splendor  of  expression,  in  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  chapters.  A  miracle  of  a  man !  Not  a  tinge  of 
fanaticism  about  him — a  simple  life  that  something  or  other 
had  at  some  time  compelled  to  be  seraphic !  One  some- 
times thinks,  had  we  not  received  the  Gospels  and  seen  the 
Saviour,  we  should  perforce  be  compelled  to  acknowledge 
that  God  had  vouchsafed  a  revelation  distinct  and  individ- 
ual, and  bow  before  its  manifestation  in  Paul.     Such  are 


96  Pulpit  Monographs  :  Paul, 

those  reasons  whicli  lead  me  to  remark  that  in  some  par- 
ticulars it  would  almost  seem  as  if  his  thoroughly  human 
side,  and  completely  human  character,  would  make  Paul  a 
more  accessible  groimd  of  appeal  to  a  sceptical  nature  for 
the  divinity  of  the  revelation  involved  in  the  Christian  re- 
ligion ;  and  while  portions  of  these  things  have  been  brought 
out  at  times,  they  do  not  seem  to  us  to  have  been  wrought 
with  that  thorough  fulness  which  might  make  them  a  tri- 
umphant appeal  to  that  harder  kind  of  intelligence  which 
seems  as  though  it  needed  to  have  its  human,  and  laT;\^er 
like  faculties  touched,  and  possessed,  before  it  yields  up 
the  whole  nature  to  the  Divine  Master,  before  v^hom  Paul, 
with  all  his  splendor  of  endowment  and  being,  confessed 
himseH  as  '^  TwtMngJ'  How  shall  we  account  for  it,  that 
this  rehgion  has  such  an  unaccountable  Saviour,  and  such 
an  unaccountable  first  Apostle  ? 

Thus  Paul  himself  furnishes  one  of  the  most  overwhelm- 
ing evidences  for  the  truth  of  the  whole  Christian  system. 
Perhaps  of  all  Paley's  valuable  contributions  to  the  cause 
of  truth,  his  Horce  PauUnce  is  the  most  valuable,  although 
the  nature  of  the  book  necessarily  limits  its  perusal  to  those 
who  are  disposed  only  to  close  thinking  and  the  fine  com- 
parison of  coincidences  and  evidences  ;  we  beheve  still  that 
that  book  has  neither  received  the  profound  attention  it  de- 
serves, nor  that  which  it  will  receive.  In  fact,  the  appear- 
ance of  Paul  in  the  early  Church  is  a  marvellous  phenom- 
enon— ^I  have  already  said,  rightly  regarded,  an  evidence  of 
the  nature  of  Christianity  most  irresistible.  We  have 
brought  before  us  the  picture  of  a  fragile  man  imperson- 
ating weakness  and  suffering,  "  filling  up  that  which  was 
behind  of  the  afflictions  of  Christ,  for  His  body's  sake, 
which  is  the  Church."  Dr.  Howson  draws  some  parallel 
between  the  appearance  of  the  Apostle  Paul  and  St.  Ber- 
nard, and  in  many  points  the  parallel  is  striking.  Possibly 
they  were  not  altogether  unlike  in  their  physique,  somewhat 


St:  Bernard  and  Paul. 


97 


alike  in  their  structure,  much  ahke  in  the  tenderness  of 
thek  minds,  and  in  the  intense  personal  devotion  they  in- 
spired in  a  few  sympathetic  followers  ;  but  with  these  gen- 
eral featui'es  the  hkeness  terminates.  Everything  favored 
St.  Bernard.  Of  course,  he  had  not  been  the  noble  being 
he  was  had  he  not  met  and  conquered  and  overwhelmed 
difficulties  by  his  personality ;  but  he  had  the  whole  age 
on  his  side — all  Europe  was  with  him, 

And  kings  to  do  him  honor  took  dcUght. 

Rome  was  all  but  imperial  then,  and  he  was  the  apostle 
and  chief  senator  of  Eome.  How  different  liis  case  who 
wrote  to  his  yomig  disciple  Timothy,  "  This  thou  knowest, 
all  they  that  be  in  Asia  be  turned  away  from  me."  Who  is 
this  man,  Paul  ?  A  poor,  aged  man,  worn  by  bodily  and 
mental  sorrow  ;  who  had  been  often  scourged ;  who  bore 
upon  his  face  the  traces  of  indignity  and  suffering  of  every 
form  ;  led  out  of  prison  by  Roman  soldiers  to  death  ;  a 
creature  of  nervous  sensibihty,  probably  of  feeble  and  im- 
perfect utterance  ;  yearning  with  passion  imspeakable  over 
the  lost  world  around  him  ;  inspired  by  a  wonderful  in- 
stinct for  souls.  Such  a  one  it  was  wiio,  faded  and  worn 
out  with  long  months  of  imprisonment,  and  with  the  chain 
on  wrist  and  ankle,  had  spoken  a  few  eloquent  words  in  the 
cause  of  Christian  truth,  which  had  awed  kings  ;  had  told 
the  tale  of  his  own  conversion  in  language  of  such  simple 
pathos  that  ages  since  have  never  heard  the  Kke. 

There  is  something  very  amazing  in  an  apparition  like 
this.  Features  in  Paul's  character  are  no  doubt  visibly 
legible,  in  which  his  internal  life  seems  to  resemble  that  of 
the  great  Alfred — that  apostle  among  kings  ;  in  his  external 
life,  that  great  saint  whose  name  we  have  quoted  already. 
But  Paul  is  aU  himself — ^he  is  a  man  utterly  unlike  any 
other,  and  presents  altogether  a  character  marvellous  in  its 
comprehensiveness.  Such  touches  abound  in  his  writings 
5 


98  Pulpit  Monographs :  Paul. 

as  show  how  his  emotions  and  intuitions  apprehended 
the  most  subtle  and  mystical  views  of  highest  spiritual 
truth  ;  then  unlike  this  order  of  character  in  general,  he 
plaits,  and  lays,  and  hnks  the  mail  of  language  and  of 
thought,  so  that  the  glow  of  his  language  becomes  only  logic 
on  fire,  taking  possession  of  the  more  earthly  order  of  rea- 
soners,  while  yet  some  frequent  glance  of  expression  shows 
how  he  related  that  which  was  intended  to  take  captive  the 
understanding,  to  the  highest  ecstacies  and  hopes  of  the 
soul.  The  question  has  often  been  asked,  Could  he  have 
been  an  orator  ?  Without  a  doubt  he  was  an  all  compre- 
hensive and  complete  one  ;  not  Demosthenes  himself  ap- 
parently a  more  successful  one  ;  for  in  the  most  simple  and 
undesigned  manner  we  have  the  account  of  his  victories 
over  many  audiences,  over  a  band  of  philosophic  skeptics  on 
Mars'  Hill,  over  a  monarch  in  the  law  courts,  over  a  mob 
on  the  staks  in  Jerusalem.  The  adroitness  of  speech 
which  we  call  oratory  he  possessed  in  a  very  eminent 
degree  ;  nor  less  that  adroitness  of  the  pen  which  not  only 
wins  disciples  in  its  own  age,  but  forms  the  gi-eat  texts  for 
followers  in  all  other  ages.  To  all  this  was  united  a  life  of 
intense  and  unceasing  activity,  the  incessant  breaking  up 
of  new  ground,  as  he  says,  not  content  to  be  "  satisfied  with 
another  man's  line  of  things,  but  plunging  into  the  regions 
beyond."  He  was  the  Alexander,  and,  higher  still,  the 
Charlemagne,  if  such  parallels  in  such  a  case  be  not  un- 
hallowed, of  the  cause  of  Christian  truth  ;  most  eminently 
the  Apostle  of  the  Greek,  barbarian,  Scythian,  Eoman,  in  a 
word,  the  Gentile  world ;  taking  possession  of  new  terri- 
tories, planting  the  Cross  there  ;  giving  the  law,  disciphne, 
and  order  of  the  Christian  Church  ;  miiting  all  the 
churches  together  in  his  large,  clear,  fatherly  glance, 
for,  as  he  says,  on  him  "came  daily  the  care  of  all  the 
churches."  All  this  seems  naturally  to  point  to  a  constitu- 
tion of  almost  infinite  elasticity,  always  on  tlie  borderland 


Touched  Three  Civilizations. 


99 


of  death  ;  in  hungering  and  famine,  in  scourging  and 
wandermg,  in  prison,  stoned  almost  to  death,  in  shipwreck 
on  the  deep,  in  perils  of  the  wilderness,  and  in  perils  of  false 
brethren  ;  and  this,  too,  with  some  especial  trial  which  he 
calls  the  "  thorn  in  the  flesh,  the  messenger  of  Satan  to  buf- 
fet him  " — to  us  apparently  a  mysterious  trial,  one  which 
coarser  natures  have  sought  to  identify  with  the  severe 
temptations  of  the  flesh,  but  which  Luther  tenderly,  yet  in- 
dignantly, set  aside, — "  Ah,  no,  dear  Paul,  it  was  not  that 
manner  of  temptation  that  troubled  thee ; "  which  some 
modem  critics  are  satisfied  to  have  identified  with  weakness 
of  vision,  by  many  little  hhits  running  over  the  Apostle's 
writing.  All  these  cu'cumstances  of  life  and  character,  and 
many  more,  meeting  in  such  a  man,  present  a  marvellous 
field  for  every  kind  of  mental  labor. 

Christianity,  "  the  city  of  God,"  was  built  at  the  conflu- 
ence of  three  civilizations  ;  the  Jews,  the  Greeks,  and  tho 
Komans,  which  had  prepared  the  world  for  the  GosxDel. 
Dr.  Arnold  has  spoken  of  them  as  the  three  people  of  God's 
election  ;  two  for  things  temporal,  one  for  things  eternal. 
There  are  points  in  Paul's  character  and  mind  which 
touched  each  of  these  ;  he  was  a  Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees, 
he  was  learned  in  the  lore  of  Greece,  and  he  had,  in  an 
eminent  degree,  the  constructive  mind  of  Kome.  What  he 
was  by  Providential  selection,  is  illustrated  by  reference  to 
individual  traits :  His  tact  and  presence  of  mind  are  illus- 
trated in  several  particulars  ;  take,  for  mstance,  his  behav- 
ior in  the  shipwreck ;  what  ready  resources  and  prompt 
good  sense !     Dr.  Howson  says  : — 

The  vessel  is  at  anchor  in  a  dark  night  on  alee  shore  in  a  gale 
of  wind.  Breakers  are  distinctly  heard,  the  soundings  show 
that  danger  is  imminent,  and  no  one  can  possibly  tell  if  the  an- 
chors will  hold ;  and  besides  this  the  ship  is  in  so  leaky  a  con- 
dition that  it  is  highly  probable  slie  may  go  down  before  day- 
break.    The  sailors  arc  doing  what  is  very  selfish,  but  very  na- 


I  oo  Pulpit  Monographs :  Paul, 

tural.  They  are  lowering  the  boat,  after  having  given  a  plausi- 
ble excuse  to  the  passengers,  but  simply  with  the  intention  of 
saving  themselves.  If  a  tumult  had  been  made,  precious  time 
v/ould  have  been  lost,  and  probably  the  sailors  would  have  ac- 
complished their  purpose.  St.  Paul  said  nothing  to  them  or  to 
the  passengers,  but  quietly  spoke  to  his  friend  the  military  offi- 
cer and  the  soldiers  who  had  charge  of  him  ;  and  his  argument 
was  that  which  all  men  in  such  cases  understand  :  "  Except  these 
abide  in  the  ship,  ye — ye — cannot  be  saved."  The  soldiers  be- 
fore this  time  had  found  good  reason  to  trust  tlie  Apostle's 
judgment;  and  the  appeal  to  self-interest  now  was  decisive. 
With  military  jDromptitude  they  cut  the  ropes,  and  the  boat  fell 
off.  Tims  the  lives .  of  nearly  300  persons  were  saved  by  the 
right  words  being  said  to  the  right  men  at  the  right  time.  We 
may  without  irreverence  go  further,  and  observe  that,  if  those 
words  had  not  so  been  spoken,  if  those  ropes  had  not  been  cut, 
our  Bibles  would  have  been  destitute  of  that  precious  group  of 
Epistles  to  the  PhiliiDpians,  Colossians,  Ephesians,  and  Phile- 
mon, written  from  the  imprisonment  at  Rome,  and  of  that  later 
and  not  less  precious  group,  the  Pastoral  Letters  to  Timothy  and 
Titus.  • 

Other  instances  have  been  cited,  such  as  his  conduct  in 
his  defence  before  the  Sanhedrim,  and  again,  w^hen  a  tem- 
porary prisoner  in  the  barracks  of  Antonia  (Acts  xxiii.  16). 

Look  at  his  defence  before  Felix  ;  it  is  remarkable  with 
what  subtlety  and  intuitional  tact  a  nice  selection  of 
words  is  indicated — ^how  different  with  different  people, 
how  apt  in  every  case !  In  perfect  honesty  his  speech  be- 
came "  all  things  to  all  men  ;"  with  singular  versatility  and 
ease,  a  Gentile  to  the  Gentiles,  a  Jew  to  the  Jew,  an 
Athenian  in  Greece,  a  Hebrew  on  the  stairs  in  Jerusalem, 
— condescending  to  men  of  low  estate,  or  rising  to  the 
height  of  royal  auditors.  Dr.  Howson  has  shown  how  pe- 
culiarly practical  was  the  imagery  of  the  Apostle,  derived 
from  his  intercourse  with  busy  human  hfe  ;  from  marriage, 
from  the  making  of  walls,  Greek  games,  from  the  markets. 


Various  Estimates  of  Ms  Cliaracter,    i  o  i 

from  architecture,  agriculture,  and  slavery.  Himself  illus- 
trating his  own  advice  ;  and  what  advice  it  is  ! — "  Walk  in 
wisdom  towards  them  that  are  without. — Let  your  speech 
be  alway  with  grace,  seasoned  with  salt,  that  ye  may  know 
how  to  answer  every  man."  *'  That  is,"  says  Dr.  Howson, 
"  seize  the  opportunity  while  you  have  it — say  words  that  fit 
the  occasion,  and  say  them  promptly — be  not  insipid — ^be 
definite  and  to  the  point,  and  remember  to  whom  you  speak 
— gracefully  conciliate,  do  not  rudely  offend,  for  it  may  bo 
your  last  opportunity  of  winning  a  soul." 

These  are  the  traits  which  led  the  witty  and  sceptical  Lord 
Shaftesbury  to  eulogise  the  gentlemanly  bearing  of  "the 
learned  and  elegant  Apostle."  But  the  tenderness  and 
sympathy  of  the  Apostle  were  equal  to  his  tact ;  nay,  it  is 
truly  said,  that  sympathy  itself  is  one  great  secret  of  tact, 
as  w^hen  Paul  advises  in  the  very  difficult  task  of  spea,king  to 
a  friend  of  his  sins :  "  The  tones  of  the  voice  make  all  the 
difference  between  wounding  and  healing."  "  Considermg 
thyself,  lest  thou  also  be  tempted."  And  here  we  have 
very  interestingly  brought  out  Paul  in  his  weakness.  It  is 
very  desirable  to  see  him  so,  not  as  a  strong  stalv/art  hero 
of  the  old  mythology,  or  knight  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but 
weak  :  "  When  I  am  weak,  then  I  am  strong."  This  his 
phrase  looks  hke  the  very  motto  of  his  life.  Professor 
Jowett  has  indeed  transgressed  on  the  other  side,  in  repre- 
senting Paul  in  the  atthe  of  mere  weakness  ;  but  w^e  may 
believe  in  his  frailty  without  beholding  him  at  all  lost  to 
the  impression  of  personal  dignity  and  command.  His 
nervous  frame  knew  the  alarms  and  fears  of  weaker  spirits, 
and  high  as  was  the  physical  and  moral  courage  of  the 
man,  he  needed  visions  to  strengthen  him,  and  to  sustain 
him  in  the  frequent  depression  of  his  spirits,  in  that  inces- 
sant craving  for  personal  s^Tupathy,  and  in  grieving  over 
the  absence  of  fiiends  or  the  defection  of  followers.  "  I 
had  no  rest,"  said  he,  "  in  my  spirit,  because  I  found  not 


I02  Pulpit  Monographs :  Paul. 

Titus  my  brother."  "Demas  hath  forsaken  me."  "AH 
Asia  hath  turned  aside  from  me."  And  to  Timothy,  "Do 
thy  dihgence  to  come  unto  me.  Do  thy  dihgence  to  come 
before  winter."  Then  what  noble  indications  of  wounded 
feehng !  What  desire  for  the  good  opinion  of  others !  In 
many  ways,  various  and  varying  writers  have  marked  the 
completeness  of  his  character. 

Prof.  Jowett  {Bom.  i.  p.  300)  quotes  the  saying,  that  St. 
Paul  was  "  the  finest  gentleman  that  ever  lived  ; "  and  Prof. 
Stanley  [Cor.  p.  391)  adds,  that  he  is  the  first  example  in 
detail  of  what  we  mean  by  "  a  gentleman."  Dr.  Newman, 
in  his  Sermons,  expresses  the  matter  thus  (p.  133)  ; 
"  There  is  not  any  one  of  those  refinements  and  deHcacies 
of  feeling,  w^hich  are  the  result  of  advanced  civilization, 
not  any  one  of  those  properties  and  embellishments  of 
conduct  in  which  the  cultivated  intellect  delights,  but  he  is 
a  pattern  of  it  in  the  midst  of  that  assemblage  of  other 
supernatural  excellences  which  is  the  common  endowment 
of  Apostles  and  Saints." 


IV. 


Lamps,  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets  in 
the  Early  Church. 

HAVE  alvfays  said  that  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  is  the  history  of  the  achievements  of 
the  pulpit.  If  you  are  desirous  of  going  through 
a  popular  compendium  of  illustrations  of  the 
character  of  the  pulpit  in  the  early  ages,  I  may  refer  you 
to  Mr.  Horace  Moule's  Inquiry  into  the  History  of  Christian 
Oratory^  during  (lie  First  Five  Centuries.  As  Church  history 
enters  into  your  studies,  you  will  not  be  able  to  review  the 
history  of  the  Church  without  noticing  the  immense  power 
of  speech.  As  in  Scripture  the  Far  stood  so  distinctly  for 
the  whole  man — "  Mine  ears  hast  thou  opened,"  "  He  that 
hath  ears  to  hear  let  him  hear  " — of  course  it  was  to  this 
very  work  that  the  first  Church  directed  itself.  It  was  a 
message,  not  to  be  dehvered  in  the  porch,  the  academy,  the 
garden,  the  grove,  or  even  the  synagogue  or  the  Sanhedrim  ; 
but,  taking  captive  the  people  by  the  omnipotence  of  irre- 
pressible convictions,  it  was  to  the  multitude,  to  the  poor. 
The  first  method  was  eminently  a  method  with  the  conscience. 
The  historian  will  tell  you  when  the  learning  of  the  mere 
dialectician  appeared,  or  the  mere  cunning  of  the  rhetorician ; 
and  the  Church  historian  wiU  tell  you  that  those  ages,  even 
the  earhest  ages,  were  remarkable  for  their  spiritual  weak- 
ness, not  for  their  spiritual  strength.     In  the  very  earhest 

(103) 


1 04        Preachers  in  the  Early  ClmrcJi. 

Ckristian  ages  oratory  v/as  kept  back,  and  was  but  a  sec- 
ondary agency  to  those  without ;  and  the  success  of  Chris- 
tianity has  been  attributed  to  the  three  extraordinaiy 
manifestations  of  its  pov>^er  :  (1,)  the  singularity  of  con- 
duct on  the  part  of  behevers  ;  (2.)  their  blameless  and 
virtuous  Hves  ;  and  (3.)  then-  heroic  constancy  and  bold 
confession  under  the  p£iins  of  persecution.  Neander  says, 
*'  As  to  the  relation  of  the  sermon  to  the  whole  office  of 
worship,  this  is  a  point  on  which  we  must  write  with  the 
most  o^Dposite  errors  of  judgment.'*  If,  however,  when 
churches  rose,  and  some  of  them  very  large,  in  the  Eastern 
and  Western  divisions,  you  had  stepped  in,  you  Vv^ould  per- 
haps have  found  many  points  of  resemblance  to  our  own, 
and  some  starthng  dissimilarities  ; — the  ambo  or  desk, 
often  in  the  centre,  the  preacher  sitting — most  natural,  and 
effective,  and  happy  of  postures  for  preaching  ;  preaching 
was  usually  extemporaneous,  with  very  rare  exceptions  ; 
understanding,  by  that  general  term,  aU  kinds  of  delivery, 
short  of  reading  from  a  complete  manuscript,  or  very  full 
notes  ;  and  it  was  thought  very  desirable  that  a  preacher 
should  be  able  to  discourse  to  the  congregation  on  a  part 
of  Scripture  from  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  In  the 
Church  were  those  nuisances  of  our  time,  short-hand 
writers,  too.  Usually,  in  length,  the  sermons  were  far 
shorter  than  ours.  The  Greek  fathers  were  always  the 
longer  ;  the  Latins  did  not  usually  occupy  more  than  haK 
an  hour,  often  not  more  than  ten  minutes.  Very  often  the 
preacher  was  interrupted  by  bursts  of  applause,  and  the 
holy  seriousness  of  Chrysostom  was  often  shocked  by  this 
supererogatory  approbation ;  while  Gregory  Nazianzen 
seems  to  have  been,  on  the  other  hand,  pleased  by  this  con- 
tribution to  vanity. 

You  must  remember  how  broken  these  hints  are  v/hich 
I  am  attempting  to  give  you  of  those  times.  The  apostolic 
age  I  have  left  with  scarce  a  remark.     The  pulpit — the 


Clemens, — Origen, — TertulUan.        1 05 

ambo — ^\vas  power  ;  doubtless  it  had  its  faults,  but  they  do 
not  seem  to  have  been  of  the  order  we  should  most  con- 
demn. Critics  find  in  Clet*ieits  declamation  and  diffuseness ; 
but  even  in  the  page,  as  Yv^e  read  it,  there  is  a  warmth 
of  piety  and  depth  of  fervor ;  he  belongs  to  the  philo- 
sophical period  of  that  age,  and  thus  he  speaks  : 

Though  the  artizan  can  make  an  idol,  he  has  never  made  a 
breathing  image,  or  formed  soft  flesh  out  of  earth.  Who  liqui- 
fied the  marrow  ?  Who  hardened  the  bones  ?  Who  extended 
the  nerves  ?  Who  inflated  the  veins  ?  Y/ho  infused  the  blood 
into  them  ?  Who  stretched  the  skin  around  them  ?  Who  made 
the  eye  to  see  ?  Who  breathed  the  soul  into  the  body  ?  Who 
freely  gave  righteousness  ?  AYho  has  promised  immortality  ? 
The  Creator  of  all  things  alone,  the  Supreme  Artizan,  made  man 
a  living  image ;  but  your  Olympian  Jove,  the  image  of  an 
image  far  dififering  from  the  truth,  is  the  dumb  work  of 
Attic  hands.  The  image  of  God  is  His  Word  ;  the  legitimate 
Son  of  Intelligence ;  the  Divine  Word ;  the  original  Light  of 
light ;  and  the  image  of  the  Word  is  the  true  man,  the  mind 
which  is  in  man,  who^  on  this  account,  is  said  to  be  in  the  image 
and  likeness  of  God,  being  assimilated  to  the  Divine  Word,  or 
Reason,  by  the  understanding  in  his  heart,  and,  therefore, 
rational.  But  the  earthly  image  of  the  visible  man,  the  man 
sprung  from  the  earth,  the  resemblance  of  man,  apjDears,  as  it 
were,  a  momentary  impression,  enfiayelov^  far  removed  from  the 
truth.* 

To  the  same  period  belong  Origen  and  Teetullian. 
Their  sins  as  preachers  were  on  the  side  of  mysticism  ;  and 
perhaps  there  were  moments  when  they  seem  to  have  per- 
mitted themselves  to  be  too  much  perverted  and  turned 
aside  by  theu^  contact  mth  the  tropical  exuberances  of 
Oriental  imagination  ;  but  that  which  strikes  us  is  the 
intense  reaHty  v/ith  which  the  Christian  life  was  described 
by   them.      Comparing  the  Christian  fife  with  the  spec- 

*  Moule,  p.  73. 


I  o6        Preachers  in  the  Early  Church. 

tacles  and  the  shows  of  Kome,  TertuUian,  whose  style 
has  been  compared  with  that  of  our  Edward  Irving,  ex- 
claims : — 

And  then  if  you  do  but  reflect  that  even  this  Hfe,  too,  is  to  be 
spent  in  deUghts,  how  can  you  be  so  ungrateful  as  not  to  be 
content  with,  and  not  to  acknowledge,  the  many  and  the  great 
pleasures  that  God  bestows  on  you  ?  For  what  is  more  delight- 
ful than  reconciliation  with  God,  our  Father  and  Lord  ? — than 
the  revelation  of  truth  ? — than  the  discovery  of  errors  ? — than 
the  pardon  of  so  grievous  offences  past  ?  What  greater  pleasure 
than  a  distaste  for  pleasure  itself — than  a  contempt  for  the 
whole  world  ? — than  true  Hberty  ? — than  a  pure  conscience  ? — 
than  a  blameless  life  ? — than  no  fear  of  death  ? — than  to  tread 
under  foot  the  gods  of  the  Gentiles  ? — to  cast  out  demons  ? — to 
perform  cures  ? — to  seek  for  revelations  ? — to  live  unto  God  ? 
These  are  the  pleasures,  these  the  shows  of  Christians,  holy, 
everlasting,  gratuitous.  If  knowledge,  if  literature  delight  a 
man's  mind,  we  have  enough  of  books,  enough  of  verses,  enough 
of  maxims,  enough  also  of  song,  enough  of  music;  no  stage 
plots,  but  verities ;  no  cunningly  wrought  stanzas,  but  simple 
strains.  Wouldest  thou  have  fightings  and  wrestlings  ?  Behold 
immodesty  cast  down  by  chastity,  perfidy  slain  by  fidelity, 
cruelty  crushed  by  compassion,  arrogance  eclipsed  by  modesty. 
Such  are  our  contests  in  which  we  gain  the  crown.  Wouldest 
thou  have  also  somewhat  of  blood  ?     Thou  hast  Christ's.* 

The  same  motives  which  impel  the  feet  of  the  artist  to 
Rome,  that  he  ma^y  study  the  ancient  masters  and  know 
the  principles  of  their  art,  will  lead  you,  as  you  possess  the 
opportunity,  to  make  yourselves  acquainted,  if  not  in  their 
original,  then  in  their  Enghsh  dress,  with  the  life  of 
Athanasius,  the  tenderness  of  Basil,  and  the  magnificence 
of  Chrysostom.  The  preaching  of  Athanasius  was  the  in- 
forming, practical  mind  of  the  first  half  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  of  whom  we  think  as  a  severe  patristic  Calvin. 

*  Moule,  p.  84. 


A  tlianasius,  1 07 

He  was  the  head  of  the  long  illustrious  line  of  conservative 
theologians.  I  cannot  commend  his  spirit  to  you  so  warmly 
as  his  faith  ;  even  Dr.  Newman  has  gathered  together  some 
illustrative  epithets  strewn  along  his  pages — ^the  flowers 
of  his  rhetoric — against  the  Arians  :  Those  favorite  epithets 
were,—"  Devils,"  "  Antichrists,"  "  Maniacs,"  "  Jews," 
"Polytheists,"  "Atheists,"  "Dogs,"  "Wolves,"  "Lions," 
"Hares,"  "Chameleons,"  "Hydras,"  "Eels,"  " Cuttle-iish," 
"Gnats,"  "Beetles,"  "Leeches."*  Yet  we  ought  to  know 
the  life  of  this  great  preacher,  and  we  should  remember 
the  horrible  inveteracy  of  his  foes.  His  life  reads  as  one 
long  and  most  glowing  romance  ;  its  incidents  are  most 
startling  and  kindling.  The  pul]3it  occupied  by  him  in 
those  exciting  scenes  and  times  becomes  not  merely  the 
great  breakwater  of  faith,  but  not  less,  if  I  may  say  so,  its 
dramatic  theatre. 

There  seems  to  have  been  much  of  Calvin  in  him,  or 
much  of  him  in  Calvin ;  his  style  was  barren  of  aU 
splendors  or  tenderness  ;  he  failed  to  touch  the  heart,  or 
disdained  to  attempt  it ;  but  there  was  in  him  an  amazing 
and  most  vital  love  to  the  Sa\dour.  He,  perhaps,  did  not 
understand  so  clearly  as  we  do,  or  as  we  might  wish  we 
understood,  the  rights  of  other  individual  souls,  but  he  did 
understand  the  rights  of  private  judgment ;  and  his 
position  for  the  truth  has  passed  into  a  proverb,  most 
sublime  in  its  expressiveness,  of  the  claims  of  the  individual 
sohtary  judgment  against  the  claims  of  general  authority — 
"Athanasius  contra  mundum  " — Athanasius  against  the 
world. 

Amongst  the  most  illustrious  names  of  the  early  Christian 
Church  stands  forth  Basil  ;  in  liim  the  orator  of  the  Church 
begins,  and  in  all  his  writings  the  orator  bums.  An  intel- 
lectual,  but   stin    imaginative   Orientahsm    pervades    all. 

*  Aihanaslns.— Historical  Treatises.  Vol.  ii.  p.  34.  Stanley's 
llistory  of  the  Eastern  Church,  p.  293. 


io8        P readier 8  in  the  Early  CTiiircli. 

Basil  and  his  pupil  Gregory  Nazianzen  were  fellow  students 
of  the  Emperor  Julian.  Basil  led  a  less  stirring  life  than 
Athanasius,  and  his  sermons  are  characterised  by  a  devo- 
tional calm.  He  preached  ostensibly  to  the  poor ;  but 
crowds  flocked  to  hear  him.  Accomplished  master  of  the 
science  of  Athenian  rhetoric  as  he  v/as,  he  concealed  his  art 
beneath  a  persuasive  and  popular  style.  He  gathered 
round  him  the  poor  indeed,  the  mechanics  cf  CesarD3a,  but 
by  his  rare  influence  compeUed  the  multitudes  of  the 
celebrated  too  ;  and,  when  he  died,  his  funeral,  followed  by 
the  whole  province,  excited  envy  for  those  who  v/ere  crushed 
to  death  in  the  crowd. 

Let  us  read  what  he  says  on  psalmody : — 

Psalmody  is  the  calm  of  the  soul,  the  repose  of  tlie  spirit,  the 
arbiter  of  peace.  It  silences  the  wave,  and  conciliates  the  whirl- 
wind of  our  passions,  soothing  the  impetuous,  tempering  the 
unchaste.  It  is  an  engenderer  of  friendship,  a  healer  of  dissen- 
sion, a  reconciler  of  enemies.  For  who  can  longer  count  him 
his  enemy,  with  whom  to  the  throne  of  God  he  hath  raised  the 
strain  %  Psalmody  repels  the  demons ;  it  lures  the  ministry  of 
angels ;  a  weapon  of  defence  in  nightly  terrors !  a  respite  from 
daily  toil.  To  the  infant  it  is  a  presiding  genius ;  to  manhood 
a  crown  of  glory  ;  a  balm  of  comfort  to  the  aged  ;  a  congenial 
ornament  to  women. 

The  following  passage  enforcing,  or  rather  illustrating, 
the  duty  of  praise,  is  elaborate,  but  very  beautiful :  ^ 

What  reward  shall  we  give  unto  the  Lord,  for  all  the  benefits 
He  hath  bestowed  ?  From  the  cheerless  gloom  of  non-existence 
He  waked  us  into  being ;  He  ennobled  us  with  understanding  ; 
He  taught  us  arts  to  promote  the  means  of  life ;  He  commanded 
the  prolific  earth  to  yield  its  nurture ;  He  bade  the  animals  to 
own  us  as  their  lords.  For  us  the  rains  descend ;  for  us  the  sun 
sheddeth  abroad  its  creative  beams ;  the  mountains  rise,  the 
valleys  bloom,  affording  us  grateful  habitation  and  a  sheltering 
retreat.     For  us  the  rivers  flow;  for  us  the  fountains  murmur; 


Chrysostom,, — Augustine.  109 

the  sea  opens  its  bosom  to  admit  our  commerce;  the  earth 
exhausts  its  stores ;  each  new  object  presents  a  new  enjoyment; 
all  nature  pouring  her  treasures  at  our  feet,  through  the 
bounteous  grace  of  Him  who  wills  that  all  be  ours."-^ 

But  what  shall  I  say  of  Chbysostom  ?  He  is  said  to  be 
the  study  of  a  life-time  in  himself.  His  works  are  volumi- 
nous. Bishop  of  Antioch  in  its  wealthiest  day,  his  conduct 
there  commands  our  highest  reverence.  He  passed  his  hfe 
amidst  the  most  virulent  energies  of  persecution.  But  I 
must  refer  you  to  Gibbon  for  the  best,  most  popular  and 
comprehensive  account  of  the  Golden  Mouthy  and  how  he 
was  dispatched  secretly  in  a  post -chariot  from  Antioch,  to 
take  the  Ai-chbishoj^ric  of  Constantinox^le  ;  it  being  feared 
that  the  people  w^ould  not  resign  their  favorite  preacher  ; 
an  ordeal  through  v/hich  very  few  preachers  since  have  had 
to  pass  in  their  ascent  to  the  episcopal  chair. 

But  immeasurably  the  greatest  of  all  the  preachers  of  the 
early  Church,  was  the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  the  stupendous,  the 
enormous  Augustink  I  believe  if  I  were  to  commend  to 
you  the  preacher  of  all  others  most  likely  to  help  you  in 
the  pulpit,  I  would  say  Chrysostom  in  his  expositions.  And 
his  style  was  very  expository — there  is  great  wisdom  and 
clearness,  it  was  eminently  practical  too  ;  also,  it  was  not 
wanting  in  a  fine  declamatory  fervor  (some  would  say  he 
possessed  it  too  abundantly) — which  must  be  possessed  by 
the  useful  preacher — ^but  the  mental  struggles  of  the  ago 
and  of  the  human  mind,  do  not  appear  to  have  affected  him. 
There  was  no  remarkable  epochs  in  his  rehgious  history, 
and  his  nature  had  not  the  roominess  which  is  shown  in 
every  page  of  the  writings  of  Augustine.  The  life  of 
Augustine  made  him  the  teacher  he  became ;  I  do  not  here 
touch  upon  it,  the  tender  story  of  his  mother  Monica,  of 
his  life  of  carelessness  and  sin,  of  his  studies  so  vast  and 

*  Moule,  pp.  118, 119. 


1 1  o        Preacliers  in  the  Early  Church, 

various  in  all  the  arts,  and  rhetoric,  and  poetry  of  the  an- 
cients and  the  pagans.  He  was  intoxicated  with  sensual 
beauty  ;  in  Carthage,  where  he  fixed  his  home,  thoughtful 
but  sensuous  rather  than  sensual,  he  luxmiated  beneath  the 
rich  bright  heavens,  by  the  beautiful  waters  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  amidst  all  the  variegated  glories  of  art,  in  a 
city,  then  one  of  the  chief  seats  of  civilization.  In  his  sub- 
Hme  work,  his  affecting  Confessions,  he  exclaims :  "  What 
wert  thou  then  to  me,  and  how  far  from  me  ?  Far  verily 
was  I  straying  from  thee,  carried  from  the  very  husks  of  the 
swine  whom  with  husks  I  fed  ;  I  sought  for  pleasures,  sub- 
limities, truths,  and  so  fell  headlong  into  sorrows,  confu- 
sions, errors."  But  his  mind  was  of  that  kind  that  must 
find  a  reason  for  everything.  And  by-and-by  came  the 
highest  reason.  What  a  story  it  is,  his  struggles  to  become 
free,  and  how  he  became  free  !  Your  position  to  the  mind 
of  Augustine  must  be  relative.  I  commend  Chrysostom  to 
all  of  you,  but  few  can  be  able  to  plough  with  the  heifers 
of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo.  Yet,  unless  you  enter  with  him 
into  his  wondrous  axt,  as  of  logic  and  abstraction,  and 
thought,  no  preacher  can  be  more  homely ;  he  is  always 
more  illustrative  than  declamatory,  and  the  racy,  spiritual- 
ising puritans  derived  much  of  then-  flavor,  and  pith,  and 
unction  from  him.  I  must  think  that  the  pleasant  in- 
geniousness  of  Matthew  Henry  not  only  found  its  ancestor, 
but  much  of  its  inspiration,  in  Augustine. 

The  "  instrument  of  ten  stnngs"  upon  which  the  Psalmist 
would  praise  God,  becomes  in  one  place  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, made  delightful  and  easy  to  keep  by  divine  grace,  or 
the  ten  fingers  which  perform  the  mission  of  the  will  in  di- 
vine service.  On  the  text,  "  Whereof  every  one  heareth 
twins"  What  twias V  says  he.  "  The  Law  and  the  Pro- 
phets— ^the  two  commandments  whereon  hang  all  in  the  life 
of  every  believer !  '  The  bread,  and  fish,  and  egg'  the  child 
asks  of  his  father  in  the  parable  are  explained — tho  bread  as 


Augustine.  1 1 1 

soul,  fish  as  faith  which  hves  amidst  the  billows  of  temp- 
tation, and  the  egg  as  hope,  a  something,  but  not  the 
chicken." 

But  if  you  do  not  admire  these  things,  do  not  smile  at 
them,  they  are  only  motes  in  the  sunbeam,  and  if  you  are 
able  to  follow  him, there  is  no  writer  in  the  long  procession 
of  preachers  who  will  so  minister  to  the  minister  as  Augus- 
tine.    Mr.  Moule  says  : 

Of  Augustine  it  may  most  truly  be  said,  that  he,  if  any  man 
had,  had  experience  of  those  phases  in  the  soul's  history  when 
"the  tongue  cleaves  even  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  and  when 
silence  is  kept,  even  from  good  words."  It  was  not  only  his  be- 
ing Prelate  of  the  West,  instead  of  a  Prelate  of  the  East,  that 
occasioned  the  wide  difference  between  himself  and  Basil, 
Gregory,  or  even  Chrysostom.  The  intense  passion  of  his  tem- 
perament, which  imparted  so  much  energy  to  his  intellectual 
operations,  and  which  is  often  the  cause  of  the  rich  and  vigorous 
flow  of  his  language,  produces  also  that  quiet  rejection  of  rhetori- 
cal ornament  which  we  find  so  prevalent  throughout  his  unpre- 
tending sermons.  The  Civitati  Dei  has,  as  might  be  expected,  a 
good  store  of  florid  language,  some  specimens  exhibiting  the  very 
highest  style  of  beauty.  But  his  subject  in  that  case,  not  only 
was  suited  to  elaborate  ornament,  it  sometimes  imperatively  de- 
manded the  very  grandest  utterance.  The  general  tone  of  Au- 
gustine was,  however,  that  of  a  man  who,  while  he  was  too 
sensible  to  despise  the  aids  of  artistic  eloquence,  was  himself, 
for  the  most  part,  far  above  them.  His  words  bearing  directly 
upon  the  subject  are  tinged  with  a  speaking  sadness.  "  Eloquence 
is  another  stream  of  Babylon  ;  it  is  one  of  the  many  objects 
quce  amantur  et  transeunt ;''''  it  is  a  mere  frigus  et  Aquilo^  com- 
pared with  the  genial  breezes  of  God,  the  Auster  translatus  de 
codo. 

He  rose  to  the  clear  empyrean  of  faith  himself;  and 
gradually  through  every  school  of  illusion,  and  scepticism, 
and  heresy.     He  qualified  liimself  to  reveal  to  the  behevers 


112        Preachers  in  the  Early  ClntrcK 

of  every  subsequent  age  the  solidity  of  the  rock  on  which 
they  build,  and  the  precious  vintage  of  consolation  growing 
on  it.  On  the  contrary,  he  sounded  the  depths  of 
Pelagianism  or,  as  we  call  it,  Arminianism — ^Naturalism. 
He  saw  what  you  must  distinctly  see  as  the  basis  of  all 
theological  chfferences,  that  they  are  in  fact  a  different  view 
of  the  relation  of  the  Infinite  to  the  finite,  of  God  to  the 
universe,  summed  up  in  the  two  distinctions  of  Rationalism, 
— Arminianism — or  every  man  his  own  Saviour  ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  doctrine  of  supernaturaHsm  and  grace  ; 
or  God  in  Christ  the  only  Saviour.  Familiarise  yourselves, 
if  you  be  old  enough,  with  the  mind  and  method  of  Augus- 
tine, and  you  will  find  the  cuirass  which  gleams  beneath 
his  bishop's  vest,  or  sword  which  peeps  from  his  side  at  the 
most  unlikely  places.  He  seems  ready  to  strike  a  blow  on 
Donatist  or  Manichsean,  or  Pelagian,  and  furnishes  a  sug- 
gestive method  of  dealing  with  heresies  perpetually  renewed, 
because  indigenous  to  the  depraved  soil  on  which  they 
spring. 


Pulpit  Monograms.     1 1. 


The  Early  Church  :     Chrysostom. 


"T  can  never  be  to  the  Cliristian  mind  either  a 
needless  or  indifferent  task  to  study  again,  or  in 
some  new  portrait  to  seek  to  retouch  or  bring 
into  greater  vividness  the  sublime  features  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Early  Church,  whose  words,  while  they  were 
Hving,  were  hke  battle-cries  against  the  idolatry,  selfishness, 
and  impurity  of  the  age,  and  which,  although  the  tongue 
of  fire  has  long  been  resolved  into  dust,  retain  still  an  in- 
spiring and  even  vocal  power.  The  orators  and  preachers 
of  the  Early  Church  form  a  very  illustrious  gallery  of  por- 
traits ;  there  is  much  about  them  that  is  very  exemplary. 
As  w^e  study  thek  words  and  deeds,  we  find,  in  truth,  how 
much,  perhaps,  they  owed  of  their  fame  and  influence  to 
that  close  union  and  alliance  of  the  destinies  of  the  Church 
with  the  State,  which  continued  so  manifest  after  the  period 
of  Constantine.  But  it  may  surely  be  questioned  whether 
their  influence  at  court  did  not  result  also  from  the  im- 
mense power  they  wielded  over  the  multitudes  of  the  cities, 
by  the  purity  of  Christian  doctrine.  The  reader  of  Church 
history  wiU  very  soon  assure  himself  how  the  rise  of  the 
Church  illustrated  its  power  by  the  "  fooHshness  of  preach- 
ing," and  became  a  great  social  influence.  The  wonder 
grows  upon  us  how  it  came  to  be  the  mighty  and  hostile 

(113) 


1 1 4      Pulpit  Monogra])hs :   Ohrisostom 

force  it  exhibits  itself  as  being  ;  but  the  study  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  early  Christian  preachers  explains  this.  The 
school  of  the  rhetorician  Vv^as  changed  into  the  Church — 
the  place  of  souls  ;  not  the  place  for  the  discussion  of  triv- 
ial questions,  the  vain  spoils  of  philosophy — it  was  a  new 
moral  power  in  the  world.  Those  men  did  not  obtain  their 
mighty  hold  over  the  breathless  multitudes  by  the  "  dispu- 
tations of  science,  falsely  so-called  ;"  not  by  pretty  httle 
Platonic  essays  ;  but  by  words  which  clave  a  way  right 
down  to  the  soul  :  enforcing  the  providence  of  God,  the  re- 
demption by  Christ,  the  immortahty  of  the  soul,  and  future 
retribution  and  judgment ;  these  were  the  themes.  Fan- 
tastic legends  and  hteratures  faded  out,  or  fell  prostrate  and 
powerless  before  such  truths,  flowing  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  speaker,  informed  by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the 
Divine  "Word,  and  flaming  from  the  ardent  hght  of  vivid 
experience.  The  bar,  the  senate,  the  school,  could  kindle 
no  such  enthusiasm,  and  win  no  such  echoes  and  responses 
as  those  which  followed  the  words  of  the  great  teachers  of 
those  early  ages. 

It  is  superfluous  to  say  that  Nonconformist  teachers  have 
not  paid  sufficient  attention  to  these  great  masters.  A 
prejudice,  it  must  be  now  admitted  very  unfounded,  has 
obtained  entrance  in  many  minds  against  them.  This 
prejudice  is  dissolving  ;  and  while  it  is  the  duty,  especially, 
of  every  minister  to  inform  liimseK  of  the  matters  in  the 
great  story  of  the  Church,  it  is  certainly  true  that  he  will 
find  in  the  first  ages,  and  among  the  teachers  of  the  third, 
fourth,  and  fifth  centuries,  hints  eminently  useful  to  him  in 
assaihng  the  sins  and  the  heresies  of  out*  own  times.  Es- 
pecially eminent,  as  the  orator  of  the  Church,  stands  forth 
John,  the  great  preacher  of  Antioch,  who  received  in  the 
seventh  century  the  name  by  which  now  he  is  only  known 
popularly,  Chrysostom,  or  the  Golden  Mouth.  He  was  bom 
in  that  city  over  which  his  eloquence  shed  such  lustre,  and 


Contrasted  tvitli  Augustine,  1 1 5 

amidst  the  uproars  aad  agitations  of  which  he  became  so 
central  an  actor,  in  the  year  354.  His  parents  were  of 
considerable  birth  and  quality ;  his  father,  Secundus,  a 
chief  general  of  the  army  of  Syria,  died  soon  after  John 
was  born  ;  his  mother,  Secunda — not  unhke  Augustine's 
gentle  Monica — although,  like  liis  father,  a  Gentile  pagan, 
contmued  umnamed  after  the  death  of  her  husband, 
Hving  for  her  son,  as  we  gather  from  an  immortal  passage 
of  exquisite  beauty  in  his  writings.  She  appears  to  have 
been  a  woman  of  great  gravity,  beauty,  and  chastity.  At 
the  age  of  twenty  Chrysostom  was  placed,  apparently,  be- 
neath the  tuition  of  the  great  Libanius,  a  chief  master  of 
rhetoric  ;  fi'om  him,  no  doubt,  he  obtained  lessons  used 
with  very  different  purposes  to  those  for  which  they  were 
given — for  John  became  a  Christian,  grew  weary  of  what 
seemed  to  him  the  unprofitable  study  of  rhetoric  ;  and  the 
lessons  intended  to  make  the  shining  orator  of  the  bar, 
went  to  furnish  the  priest,  the  preacher,  and  father  of  the 
Church.  It  was  a  source  of  bitter  regret  to  his  old  master, 
affid  on  his  death-bed  he  grieved  that  there  was  no  successor 
to  his  school,  because  the  Christians  had  stolen  John  from 
him. 

About  the  early  history  of  Chrysostom,  the  years  before 
his  conversion,  there  is  nothing  of  the  wonderful  interest 
attaching  to  the  unconverted  life  of  Augustine.  Chrysos- 
tom had  not  the  same  sensuous  and  passionate  nature, 
therefore  had  not  so  fierce  a  conflict  to  wage  with  himself  ; 
he  had  not  the  same  great  roommess  of  nature  as 
that  of  the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  in  whose  soul,  before  his  con- 
version, every  sort  and  kind  of  heresy  and  infidelity  seemed 
at  one  time  or  other  to  find  not  a  momentary  but  a  logical 
lodgment,  until  aU  were  put  to  flight,  as  he  tells  us  in  his 
immortal  Confession'^,  Then  Chrysostom  had  not  very  long 
passed  youth  when  he  was  converted  ;  Augustine,  on  the 
contrary,  was  in  the  very  prime  of  life,  in  all  the  vigor  of 


1 1 6      Pulpit  Monograplis :   Clirysostom. 

his  studies.  Chrysostom  bad  never  known  the  ways  of  vice 
and  sin  ;  the  warm  Afiican  nature  of  Augustine  had  known 
every  seduction  of  poetry  and  passion  ;  he  had  to  put  away 
the  person  he  very  tenderly  loved,  apparently ;  and  we 
know  in  what  terms  he  has  celebrated  and  made  memora- 
ble his  affection  for  his  illegitimate  son  Adeodatus.  But 
the  conversion  of  Chrysostom  was  marked  by  a  reality  as 
distinct  as  that  of  Augustine  ;  he  and  his  friend  Basil — 
evidently  not  the  great  bishop — determined  on  abandomng 
the  w^orld  altogether,  and  flying  to  the  monastery.  This 
was  easy  for  Basil,  who  had  no  worldly  ties,  but  Chrysostom 
had  debts  to  pay  to  his  jDosition  and  his  property,  and, 
above  all,  to  his  mother,  whose  tender  and  overwhelming 
appeal  has  been  preserved  to  us.  She  reminded  him  of  all 
her  troubles  and  miseries  in  widowhood,  all  the  agitations 
and  disquietude  attending  her — a  young  woman,  without 
a  husband — but  all  borne  for  his  sake  ;  how  she  was  tossed 
in  storm  and  tempest,  determined  "  not  to  bring  a  second 
husband  into  your  father's  house  ; "  not  declining  the  hard- 
ships of  the  iron  furnace  that,  as  she  says,  **  I  might  daily 
behold  your  face  while  you  were  an  infant,  and  have  con- 
tinually before  me  the  image,  the  character,  and  resem- 
blance of  your  father."  She  implored  him  not  to  involve 
her  in  a  second  widowhood.  "  When  you  have  committed 
me  to  the  ground,  travel  whither  you  please."  Many  more 
words  to  the  same  effect  the  poor  mother  poured  out  into 
the  ear  and  heart  of  her  son.  We  are  afraid  that  she  did 
not  produce  so  much  effect  upon  him  as  circumstances.  It 
is  a  proof  of  the  importance  of  Chrysostom  in  Antioch, 
that  at  tliis  time,  although  he  could  not  have  been  much 
more  than  twenty  years  of  age,  and  had  not  been  veiy  long 
converted,  a  repoi^t  was  spread  that  the  Church  v/as  about 
to  elevate  him  to  the  office  of  a  bishop, — our  readers  wiU 
bear  in  mind  the  immense  difference  between  our  idea  of  a 
bishop  and  that  of  the  early  Christians.     He  fled  fi-om  the 


Two  Mothers^  Monica  and  Secunda,      1 17 

city,  going  for  some  time  to  reside  among  the  monks  near 
Antiocli.  Of  liis  mother  we  only  hear  that  she  died  shortly 
afterwards  ;  it  does  not  seem  probable  that  he  really  joined 
the  monks  until  after  that  event.  The  beautiful,  chaste, 
self-denying  pagan  lady  never  saw  the  greatness  and  glory 
of  her  son.  She  never  heard  any  of  those  marvellous  ora- 
tions, did  not  know  that  the  lips  which  had  been  so  much 
to  her — ^kissed  so  fondly  and  so  often,  as  mothers  only  can 
kiss — were  through  all  after  ages  to  be  called  the  golden. 
She  soon  passes  out  of  sight,  but  assuredly  her  son  did  her 
justice,  and  treasured  her  memory.  The  name  and  memory 
of  Monica  have  been  held  very  dear  in  Church  history  ; 
but  let  us,  as  we  pass  bV,  look  lovingly  and  tenderly  upon, 
and  set  a  fair  white  lily  over,  the  gxave  of  Secanda. 

Six  years  Chr^^sostom  continued  among  the  mountains 
and  the  monasteries  ;  for  some  time  he  dwelt  in  a  cave  with 
an  aged  hermit ;  sohtary,  shut  up  in  a  still  more  lonely  cell, 
he  spent  some  other  two  years,  taking  httle  rest,  pondering 
closely  the  Word,  conversing  with  himself ;  seeking  out 
that  he  might  obtain  the  grace  of  spiritual  strength  to  scat- 
ter, and  rout,  and  put  to  flight  the  sins  lurking  in  his  na- 
ture. He  seems  to  have  been  ordained  by  the  Bishop  Mile- 
tius  a  reader  and  deacon  of  the  Church  in  Antioch  about 
the  year  381.  He  returned  to  the  city  learned  and  accom- 
plished in  every  art  and  gift  necessary  to  the  sacred  orator. 
"When  he  left  he  was  an  accomphshed  rhetorician  ;  and  we 
can  well  conceive  what  effect  six  years  of  sohtude  among 
the  momitains,  with  no  other  book  but  the  Sacred  Word, 
would  have  upon  a  nature  able  to  receive  it.  The  moment 
soon  came  when  his  mighty  oratory  was  put  forth  with  aU 
its  vehemence  and  strength.  So  long  as  he  continued  in 
Antioch  his  voice  was  hke  a  beU,  chiming  or  toUing, 
and  certainly  the  sonorous  notes  of  the  kneU  predom- 
inate over  the  chime.  Among  the  most  intrepid  and  noble 
of  his  orations  is  the  series  on  The  Statices,     Oppressed  and 


1 1 8      Pulpit  Monographs :  CJirysostorti, 

harassed  by  taxation,  the  people  of  Antioch — naturally  a 
turbulent  and  unquiet  race — ^rose  in  tumult  and  uproar 
against  a  warrant  for  a  new  assessment.  It  created  no 
small  irritation  ;  they  encouraged  one  another  to  revolt, 
until,  in  the  turmoil  in  the  streets,  the  brazen  statues  of 
the  emperor  and  his  wife  Mavilla  were  torn  down,  and 
dragged  ignominiously  by  ropes,  with  insolent  rudeness  and 
bitter  sarcasm,  through  the  city.  Scarcely  had  the  deed 
been  done  than  all  the  inhabitants  w§re  in  mourning  and 
fear.  In  our  country  and  age  such  an  indignity  would  very 
likely  produce  unhappy  results  ;  what  then  might  be  ex- 
pected in  the  very  era  of  imperial  cruelty  ?  Fear  spread  on 
every  hand  ;  those  who  could  fly  the  city,  fled  ;  those  who 
were  taken  were  hurried  off  to  prison.  The  foi-um,  a  few 
days  before  crowded,  was  deserted,  and  here  and  there  a 
few  frightened  and  trembling  people  might  be  seen  skulking 
about  with  dejected  looks.  Images  of  confiscation,  death, 
and  worse  than  death,  were  before  all  men's  eyes.  In  the 
panic,  the  good  Bishop  Flavianus  took  upon  himself  to  go 
as  an  ambassador  of  peace  to  the  emperor.  It  was  winter  ; 
he  was  aged,  and  a  man  of  many  infirmities.  The  distance 
was  considerable  ;  his  sister,  too,  was  dying  ;  but  he  went. 
Chrysostom  was  left  in  the  niouming  city ;  he  walked 
through  it,  and  saw  its  profound  distress  ;  its  silence  only 
broken  by  the  armed  guards  with  swords  and  spears  resist- 
ing the  wailhig  women  and  children  who  were  seeking  to 
throng  the  courts  of  justice  to  save  their  husbands  and  fa- 
thers. While  the  bishop  w' as  on  his  way  to  the  metropohs, 
Chrysostom  called  the  people  daily  to  the  church  ;  there, 
in  their  agitated  and  trembhng  midst,  he  pronounced  those 
twenty-one  homihes  concerning  The  Statues.  "While  the 
bishop  was  seeking  to  turn  aside  the  unperial  wrath,  Chry- 
sostom wrought  day  by  day  upon  the  crowds  in  the  church. 
The  follow^ing  passage  is  a  very  fine  illustration  of  the  nat- 
m-al  and  easy,  yet  forcible  way  in  which  the  orator  turns 


The  Orations  "  On  the  Statues.'" 


119 


the  circumstance  to  account,  and,  with  great  art,  preaches 
to  the  emperor  for  mercy,  while,  in  reahty,  he  reproves  the 
sins  and  passions  of  the  people.  Thus  he  exclaims  in  a 
passage  on 

THE  BOUNDLESS  LOYING-KINDNESS   OF   GOD. 

A  man  has  been  insulted,  and  we  are  all  in  fear  and  trembling 
— both  those  of  us  who  have  been  guilty  of  this  insult,  and  those 
of  us  who  are  conscious  of  innocence.  But  God  is  insulted  every 
day.  Why  do  I  say  every  day  ?  Rather  should  I  say  every  hoar, 
by  rich  and  by  poor,  by  those  who  are  at  ease  and  those  who  are 
in  trouble,  by  those  who  calumniate  and  those  who  are  calum- 
niated ;  and  yet  there  is  never  a  word  of  this ;  therefore  God 
has  permitted  our  fellow-servant  to  be  insulted,  that  thou  mayest 
know  the  loving-kindness  of  the  Lord.  This  offence  has  been 
committed  only  for  the  first  time,  yet  we  do  not,  on  that  account, 
expect  to  reap  the  advantage  of  excuse  or  apology.  We  provoke 
God  every  day,  and  make  no  movement  of  returning  to  Him ; 
and  yet  He  bears  with  all  long-suffering ;  see  you  how  great  is 
the  loving-kindness  of  the  Lord.  In  this  present  outrage,  the 
culj)rits  have  been  apprehended,  thrown  into  prison,  and  pun- 
ished ;  and  yet  we  are  in  fear.  He  who  has  been  insulted  has 
not  heard  of  what  has  been  done,  nor  pronounced  sentence  ;  and 
we  are  all  trembling.  But  God  hears  day  by  day  the  insults  of- 
fered to  Him,  and  no  one  turns  to  Him,  although  God  is  so  kind 
and  loving.  With  Him  it  is  enough  to  acknowledge  the  sin, 
and  the  guilt  is  absolved:  ...  do  you  not  hence  conclude 
how  unspeakable  is  the  love  of  God,  how  boundless,  how  it  sur- 
passes all  description  !  Here  he  who  has  been  insulted  is  of  the 
same  nature  with  ourselves ;  only  once  in  all  his  life  has  he  been 
so  treated,  and  that  not  to  his  face,  not  while* he  was  present 
and  seeing  and  hearing,  and  yet  none  of  the  offenders  have  been 
pardoned.  But  in  the  case  of  God,  not  one  of  these  things  can 
be  said.  For  so  vast  is  the  distance  between  man  and  God,  that 
no  words  can  express  it,  and  every  day  is  He  insulted  while  He 
is  present,  looking  on,  and  hearing ;  and  yet  He  neither  hurls 
thunderbolts,  nor  bids  the  sea  overflow  the  earth  and  drown  all 
its  inhabitants,  nor  commands  the  earth  to  yawn  and  swallow 


I20      Pulpit  Monographs :  Chrysostom. 

up  all  wlio  have  insulted  Him  ;  but  He  forbears,  and  is  long- 
suffering,  and  offers  pardon  to  those  by  whom  He  has  been  out- 
raged, if  they  only  repent  and  j)roniise  to  do  so  no  more.  Oh, 
surely  it  is  time  to  exclaim,  Who  can  utter  the  mighty  acts  of 
the  Lord  ?     Who  can  show  forth  His  praise  ? 

As  to  the  friendly  bishop,  it  is  pleasing  to  know  that  he 
was  well  and  kindly  entertained  by  the  emperor.  He  held 
a  long  intercourse  with  him,  during  which  the  old  man  re- 
minded him  of  the  example  of  his  ancestor,  Constantine, 
w4io,  when  liis  statue  had  been  miserably  abused,  and  its 
face  battered  and  broken,  passed  his  hands  over  his  face, 
sa^dng,  "  I  do  not  feel  myseK  bruised  and  broken,  and  my 
head  and  face  seem  sound  and  whole  ;  and  then  he  used 
the  better  authority  of  Him  who  said,  "  If  ye  forgive  men 
their  trespasses,"  etc.,  etc.  ;  and  the  emperor  courteously 
entreated  him  ;  and  then,  with  pardons  in  his  possession, 
hastened  his  return  back.  The  good  old  bishop,  unable  to 
travel  very  fast,  forwarded  the  good  news  before  him  ;  and 
we  leam  how,  when  he  entered  the  city,  it  was  all  ablaze 
with  rejoicing  lights  ;  the  forum  decorated  with  garlands 
and  flowers,  and  green  boughs  over  all  the  shops  and  doors 
— quite  a  festive  solemnity.  And  then  the  dear  old  bishop 
w^ent  to  the  church  to  give  thanks  ;  and  Chiysostom,  in  the 
place  where,  during  the  bishop's  absence,  he  had  poured  forth 
his  jeremiads,  now,  for  the  prosperous  success  of  the  under- 
taking, pronounced  an  oration  full  of  gratulation  and  joy. 

No  doubt  the  behavior  of  Chrysostom  on  this  occasion, 
joined  to  his  favorable  eminence  in  opinion  before,  made 
him  to  be  a  man  who  could  not  be  hid.  In  the  year  398 
he  was  consecrated  and  enthroned  bishop  of  Constantino- 
ple. Ministers,  at  the  present  day,  who  leave  one  charge 
or  diocese  for  another,  are  in  no  danger  of  creating  such  a 
turmoil  as  that  caused  by  the  rumor  oX  the  probable  de- 
parture of  Chrysostom  from  Antioch.  The  people  could 
not  tolerate  the  idea  of  the  departure  from  their  midst  of 


At  Co7isfantinopIe.  I2i 

their  admired  and  eloquent  preacher ;  nor  did  it  appear 
that  the  preacher  himself  desired  to  remove  ;  and,  proba- 
bly, had  he  known  what  circumstances  were  to  come  out  of 
this  consecration,  the  emperor  himself  would  not  have  been 
so  determined  in  his  design.  Fearing,  however,  a  popular 
tumult,  a  letter  was  written  to  the  governor  of  the  prov- 
ince to  manage  the  matter.  He  desired  Chrysostom  to 
walk  a  httle  way  with  him  out  of  the  town,  decoyed  him 
into  his  carriage,  and  drove  him  to  the  next  stage  beyond 
Antioch  ;  there  he  was  delivered  into  the  custody  of  the 
officers  of  the  Government  sent  by  the  emperor  to  receive 
him.  The  emperor  had  desired  that  his  consecration  should 
take  place  with  circumstances  of  especial  pomp  and  solem- 
nity, and  a  convention  of  bishops  was  summoned  to  assist 
at  it ;  and  thus,  by  guile  and  craft,  seldom  needed  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  for  elevation  to  such  dignity,  the 
people  of  Antioch  lost  their  pastor,  and  Chrysostom  became 
a  bishop. 

From  this  time,  he  enters  upon  that  course  of  events  in 
his  life  which  should  commend  him  most  to  the  notice  of 
preachers  and  teachers.  In  the  great  metropolis  of  the 
East,  he  became  a  great  social  reformer.  His  discoiu'ses 
are  richly  exemplary  ;  vehemently  lashing  the  vices  of  the 
city  and  the  vices  af  the  clergy.  There  had  been,  indeed, 
from  the  corrupt  members  of  the  Church  of  Constantinople, 
considerable  opposition  to  his  elevation.  Constantinople, 
then  the  chief  city  of  the  world,  the  seat  of  the  empire  of 
the  East,  the  seat  of  the  court,  could  not,  of  course,  be  sup- 
posed to  be  exempt  from  those  sins  especially  peculiar  to 
great  cities.  The  preacher,  among  those  of  his  own  pro- 
fession, and  those  who  hved  only  to  amuse,  found  and  sat- 
irized "  such  as  sold  their  voices  to  their  belhes" — a  very 
admirable  description,  by  the  bye,  of  many  a  preacher  and 
singer  of  succeeding  times.  Even  Dean  Milman  has  ap- 
parently judged  Chrysostom  somewhat  coldly,  because  ho 
6 


122      Pulpit  Monograplis :   Chrysostom, 

carried  into  his  pubic  administration  more  of  the  manners 
of  the  ascetic  than  seemed  poHtic  in  a  position  of  such  im- 
portance. Gibbon,  of  course,  cannot  be  expected  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  man  whose  loud  thunders  against  the 
scandals  of  the  Church,  or  the  vices  of  the  city,  ere  long 
brought  him  into  immediate  hostiHty  with  the  indignations 
aHke  of  the  chiefs  of  Church  and  State.  It  is  probable  that 
such  a  temper  as  that  possessed  by  the  vehement  orator  of 
St.  Sophia  was  choleric  ;  and  in  a  state  of  affairs  languish- 
ing beneath  a  plethora  of  ill-humors  he  attempted  too  rapid 
a  reform.  The  clergy  were  aroused,  and  sought  to  traduce 
him  to  the  people ;  but  yet,  the  stainless  gxandeur  of  his 
own  life,  so  sombre  and  solemn,  gave  more  vivid  brilhancy 
to  his  amazing  orations.  He  soon  found  himself,  however, 
the  centre  of  an  immense  conspiracy,  to  which  also  the  em- 
peror and  empress  lent  themselves.  It  is  possible,  as  Mil- 
man  very  distinctly  reasons,  that  he  permitted  himself  to 
be  too  much  influenced  by  the  representations  of  his  deacon 
Serapion.  Finally,  however,  he  was  cited  to  the  celebrated 
Synod  of  the  Oak  ;  forty-six  charges  were  preferred  against 
him,  which  even  the  sceptical  and  sarcastic  Gibbon,  who 
never  misses  his  opportunity  for  snubbing  and  sneering  at 
a  saint,  says,  "  may  justly  be  considered  as  a  fair  and  unex- 
ceptional panegyric."  Four  times  the  citation  was  served 
upon  the  bishop  by  the  representatives  of  the  Council ;  he 
refused — as  they  considered,  contumaciously — to  intrust 
either  his  life  or  reputation  in  then-  hands.  While  the 
envenomed  conclave  was  sitting,  he  continued  preachmg, 
surrounded  himseK  by  the  bishops  of  his  party,  and  re- 
mained himself  intrepid  and  unmoved.  As  we  read  of 
these  things,  it  is  possible  to  move  back,  in  imagination  and 
thought,  to  those  agitated  days.  We  are  able  to  read 
calmly  until  we  remember  that  life  and  existence  hung  upon 
the  decision  of  the  Council  ;  but  amidst  the  troubles  of  his 
companions,  some  of  whom  were  m  tears,  some  unable  to 


On  the  Council  of  the  Oak.  123 

control  or  to  confine  their  passion,  humbly  embracing,  and 
kissing  his  garments — "  Brethren,"  said  he,  "  sit  down,  and 
do  not  weep  ;  for  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain  ;" 
and  then  followed  those  magnificent,  immortal  words,  we 
presume  not  unknown  to  many  of  our  readers  ;  words  fall- 
ing from  his  lips  while  the  sentence  of  banishment  was  be- 
ing pronounced  : 

What  can  I  fear  ?  Will  it  be  death  ?  But  you  know  that 
Christ  is  my  life,  and  that  I  shall  gain  by  death.  Will  it  be  ex- 
ile ?  But  the  earth  and  all  its  fulness  is  the  Lord's.  Will  it  be 
the  loss  of  wealth  ?  But  we  brought  nothing  into  the  world, 
and  can  carry  nothing  out.  Thus  all  the  terrors  of  the  world 
are  contemptible  in  my  eyes ;  and  I  smile  at  all  its  good  things. 
Poverty  I  do  not  fear.  Riches  I  do  not  sigh  for.  Death  I  do  not 
shrink  from  ;  and  life  I  do  not  desire,  save  only  for  the  progress 
of  your  souls.  But  you  know,  my  friends,  the  true  cause  of  my 
fall.  It  is  that  I  have  not  lined  my  house  with  rich  tapestry. 
It  is  that  I  have  not  clothed  me  in  robes  of  silk.  It  is  that  I 
have  not  flattered  the  effeminacy  and  sensuality  of  certain  men, 
nor  laid  gold  and  silver  at  their  feet.  But  why  need  I  say  more  ? 
Jezebel  is  raising  her  persecution,  and  Elias  must  fly;  Herodias 
is  taking  her  pleasure,  and  John  must  be  bound  with  chains ; 
the  Egyptian  wife  tells  her  lie,  and  Joseph  must  be  thrust  into 
prison.  And  so,  if  they  banish  me,  I  shall  be  like  Elias  ;  if  they 
throw  me  in  the  mire,  like  Jeremiah  ;  if  they  plunge  me  into  the 
sea,  like  the  j)rophet  Jonah ;  if  into  the  pit,  like  Daniel ;  if  they 
stone  me,  it  is  Stephen  that  I  shall  resemble ;  John  the  forerun- 
ner, if  they  cut  off  my  head ;  Paul,  if  they  beat  me  with  stripes ; 
Isaiah,  if  they  saw  me  asunder. 

The  emperor  was  called  upon  to  ratify  the  decree  of 
deposition  pronounced  by  the  Council ;  and  the  too  visible 
and  manifest  reflections  on  the  empress  in  the  passage  we 
have  just  cited,  very  likely  made  it  more  easy  to  him  to 
yield  his  sanction  to  the  sentence.  He  was  speedily  ar- 
rested, in  quite  another  fashion  than  that  in  which  he  was 
hurried  away  to  his  stormy  bishopric.     He  was  conveyed 


1 24     Fulpit  Monograjylis  :   Chrysostom, 

through  the  city  by  an  imperial  messenger,  and  landed, 
after  a  short  navigation,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Euxine.  The 
people  of  the  city  were  astounded.  During  the  Council  of 
the  Oak,  they  had  been  comparatively  mute  and  passive. 
His  arrest  aroused  the  city  to  such  a  height  of  indignation 
as  has  not  often,  in  such  an  instance,  been  crowned  with  a 
like  success,  even  where  its  object  has  been  devotion  and 
enthusiasm  to  greatness  and  goodness,  in  the  presence  of  a 
corrupt  court.  Very  likely,  not  a  little  was  added  to  the 
intensity  and  wonder  of  the  hour  by  the  throb  of  an  earth- 
quake, which  shook  the  city  that  very  night ;  and,  while  it 
created  some  rum,  seemed  to  be  portentous  of  more.  Even 
the  empress  fell  on  her  knees  before  the  emperor,  and  be- 
sought him  to  recall  the  saintly  but  audacious  orator.  She 
— who  had  certainly  been  involved  deeply  in  the  machina- 
tions against  him,  and,  no  wonder,  when  it  is  remembered 
that  she  had  not  escaped  either  the  satire  or  the  vehemence 
of  this  Knox  of  the  Early  Church — ^now  protested  herself 
quite  innocent  of  all  the  troubles  which  had  come  upon  him, 
declaring  how  she  honored  him,  not  only  as  her  own  bishop, 
but  particularly  as  the  person  who  had  baptized  her  chil- 
dren. Eound  the  palace  raged'  and  roared  the  immense 
waves  of  popular  commotion  ;  it  was  manifest  that  the  pub- 
lic safety  could  only  be  purchased  by  the  return  of  the  min- 
ister, and  messengers  were  sent  to  hasten  his  return  ;  and 
the  historian  of  The  Declme  and  Fall  has,  even  without  a 
sneer,  recited  how  the  shores  of  Europe  and  Asia  were  il- 
luminated, and  the  Bosphorus  crowded  with  boats,  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Propontis,  as  the  victorious  people  accom- 
panied, with  flaming  torches,  their  archbishop  from  the  port 
to  the  cathedral,  lie,  indeed,  with  an  inflexibility,  which, 
of  course,  was  part  of  his  character,  was  loath  to  yield  to 
any  prayers  for  his  return,  imtil  his  innocency  should  be 
vindicated  before  a  greater  synod  than  that  by  which  he 
had  been  condemned,  and  his  sentence  legally  reversed. 


Iteturn  from  Banislwient  1 2  5 

But  the  people  were  impatient  of  delay,  and  the  empress 
also  sent  to  compliment  liim,  declaring  that  his  return  to 
the  city  was  more  to  her  than  the  crown  she  wore  ;  and, 
in  approved  Oriental  language,  expressing  how  she  had  re- 
stored the  head  to  the  body,  the  pilot  to  the  ship,  the  pas- 
tor to  the  flock.  So  he  yielded,  and  was  met  on  his  way 
by  multitudes  of  the  people,  singing  hymns  to  God  for  his 
return.  Thus  they  bore  him  to  the  cathedral,  and  no  pro- 
test of  his  that  he  was  under  ecclesiastical  censure,  and  had 
no  right  there,  was  of  any  avail ;  they  would  have  him 
ascend  the  bishop's  throne,  and  give  his  blessing  and  an 
extempore  sermon,  which  has  been  lost,  though  some  who 
heard  it  spoke  of  it  as  one  of  the  most  considerable  of  his 
life.  We  know  little  more  of  it  than  that  he  spoke  tiU  the 
people  would  allow  him  to  speak  no  longer — borne  down 
and  overwhelmed  by  their  acclamations.  What  men  of 
might  were  the  bishops  of  those  distant  days  ! 

But  auspicious  as  were  the  cu'cumstances  of  the  orator's 
return,  no  reader  can  be  much  surprised  to  find  that  they 
were  not  omens,  either  of  long-continued  peace  or  of  a 
happy  close  to  his  career.  He  soon  vexed  the  empress 
again.  Her  irritation  against  him  in  the  days  of  the  first 
persecution  grew  out  of  his  sharp  rebukes  of  court  fashions. 
It  soon  seemed  that  he  had  even  a  stronger  and  more 
personal  ground  for  rebuke  as  a  Christian  minister. 
A  silver  statue  of  the  empress,  Eudoxia,  was  to  be  solemnly 
erected  ;  it  was  to  be  elevated  on  a  porphyry  pillar  in  the 
street,  and  not  far  fi^om  the  spot  where  stood  the  Church 
of  St.  Sophia.  Its  elevation  and  inauguration  were  accom- 
panied not  only  by  many  shoutings,  dances,  and  extra- 
vagancies, but  by  certain  loose  sports  and  pastimes,  very 
suitable  to  the  idolatries  of  Manichseanism  or  semi-paganism. 
The  provost  of  the  city  was  a  Manichsean  and  therefore 
encouraged  tliis  kind  of  looseness.  Chrysostom's  speech 
rushed  out  instantly  in  an  unwise  blaze  of  vehement  invec- 


1 26      Pulpit  Monographs :  Chrysostom. 

tive.  If  readers,  quietly  perusing  these  pages  of  Church 
history,  think  that  a  milder  course  of  expostulation  would 
have  been  more  wise,  let  it  be  conceded  that  Kome  and  the 
world  were  only  just  then  emerging  from  paganism — these 
rites  were  of  the  very  nature  of  paganism.  In  the  latter 
years  of  the  reign  of  paganism  in  the  empire,  emperors  had 
demanded  and  received  the  blasphemy  of  an  apotheosis. 
Assuredly,  however,  the  preacher  could  have  had  little 
affection  or  respect  for  the  woman  herself.  In  one  of  his 
sermons  at  this  period,  he  drew  the  character  of  an  ill 
woman,  affirming  that  no  beast  in  the  world,  nor  hon,  nor 
dragon,  is  comparable  to  a  bad  woman  ;  and  he  enforced 
and  illustrated  this  by  many  illustrations  from  Scripture  ; 
then,  also,  he  turned  the  tables,  and  discoursed  of  the 
quahties,  nature,  and  actions  of  good  women.  The  empress 
was  again  roused  to  indignation.  Again,  from  this  circum- 
stance, active  machinations  were  formed  against  him  ;  the 
persecution  reached  a  considerable  height ;  the  clergy  who 
sided  with  him  were  seized,  beaten,  wounded,  and  im- 
prisoned ;  the  waters  of  the  baptistery,  where  he  officiated, 
were  stained  with  blood.  Looked  at  from  this  point  of 
view,  we  see  that  it  was  the  strong  and  mahgnant  action 
of  paganism  against  a  pure  Christianity. 

At  last,  power  used  its  utmost  insolence.  It  was  de- 
termined by  the  court,  and  that  part  of  the  Church  which 
sided  with  it,  that  he  should  again  be  deposed  and  banished. 
The  city  was  in  strange  agitation,  when  suddenly  a  fire 
broke  out  in  his  magnificent  cathedral.  The  conflagration 
spread,  and  left  no  part  of  the  stately  fabric  untouched ; 
the  triumphant  flames  rolled  along  the  aisles,  and  some 
choice  pieces  of  antiquity  are  now  probably  lost  to  us,  as 
they  perished  in  that  great  calamity,  in  which,  however, 
neither  man  nor  beast  was  injured.  The  most  monstrous 
circumstance  of  all  was,  that  Chrysostom  was  himself 
charged  with  setting  fire  to  the  church  ;  his  case  was  in- 


His  Final  Banishment  1 27 

deed  liopeless  ;  he  had  left  it,  he  had  bidden  farewell  to  his 
deaconesses  ;  he  had,  in  fact,  withdi'awn  from  the  friendly 
custody  of  his  adherents,  and  was  on  his  way,  while  his 
church  was  in  flames,  to  the  Asiatic  shore.  The  charge, 
of  course,  was  only  one  of  the  monstrous  maHgnities  of  the 
time,  vexiag  the  heart,  and  increasing  the  agony  of  the 
persecuted  man.  After  his  surrender  and  departure  in 
that  ill  night,  he  never  saw  Constantinople  again.  Hence- 
forth he  was  a  prisoner,  wandering  amidst  places,  if  it 
were  possible  to  find  them,  where  his  friends  would  not 
flock  round  him,  to  love  and  reverence.  But  his  influence 
continued  during  his  absence.  From  his  soHtary  cell  among 
the  mountains  of  the  Caucasus,  although  another  bishop 
had  been  enthroned  in  his  place,  he  governed  his  church, 
almost  the  whole  of  the  Eastern  Church.  As  he  entered 
towns  and  neighborhoods — as  when  he  came  upon  the 
frontiers  of  Cappadocia  and  Tauro-Cilesia — ^bishops,  and 
monks,  and  holy  women  met  him  in  great  companies, 
thronging  round  him  with  tears,  and  saying,  that  it  were 
better  the  sun  should  not  shine  in  the  heavens,  than  John 
should  be  silenced.  He  carried  with  him  a  wasted  and 
painful  frame  ;  subject  to  many  and  grievous  sicknesses ; 
he  wandered,  shifting  from  place  to  place,  regarding  woods 
and  rocks  as  his  best  security  ;  and  Tavemier,  the  traveller, 
tells  of  a  town  in  Armenia,  two  miles  from  which,  in  the 
midst  of  a  plain,  rises  a  rugged  rock,  in  the  which  was  a 
hewn  chamber,  and  bed,  table,  and  cupboard ;  and,  after 
some  several  steps  cut  in  the  rock,  a  httle  gallery  leading 
to  another  chamber  ;  and  the  tradition  of  the  Christians 
of  that  place  in  the  time  of  Tavemier  was  that  here  the 
eloquent  and  saintly  exile  passed  a  hard  winter.  The 
Bishop  of  Eome,  Innocent,  wrote  to  him,  assuring  him 
of  his  affection,  seeking  thus  to  sustain  him  in  his  exile. 
This  was  towards  the  close  of  his  course.  It  was  necessary 
to  destroy  his  influence,  as  well  as  to  compel  his  exile.   The 


128      Pulpit  Monografphs :  Clirysostom. 

soldiers  were  cruel  to  him,  by  the  imperial  edict,  compelling 
him  to  travel,  when  liis  wasted  frame  could  bear  no  toil, 
through  violent  rains  and  burning  suns. 

At  last  they  came  to  Comana,  a  town  in  Cappadocia  ;  he 
was  not  permitted  to  lodge  in  the  town,  but  hurried  forward 
till  they  reached  the  oratory  of  St.  Basil,  ^nq  or  six  miles 
off.  St.  Basil  had  been  Bishop  of  Comana,  and  died  a 
martyr  under  Maximian.  The  legend  says  that,  the  night 
before,  the  martyr  had  appeared  to  Brother  John  and  said, 
''Be  of  good  cheer,  brother,  to-morrow  we  shall  be  together ! " 
Moreover,  the  legend  continues,  the  martyr  had  appeared 
to  the  bishop  of  the  place,  bidding  him  "  provide  for  brother 
Jolin  on  the  morrow."  When,  therefore,  Chrysostom 
reached  the  oratory,  he  requested  of  his  guard  that  he 
might  stay  there,  but  they  hurried  him  forward.  They  had 
not,  however,  gone  more  than  three  or  four  miles,  when  he 
became  so  ill  that  they  were  obhged  to  return.  As  soon  as 
he  entered,  he  called  for  the  brethren  to  give  hioi  some 
clean,  white  raiment.  He  stripped  himself,  and  having  put 
on  the  clothing  brought  him,  he  received  the  sacrament 
from  their  hands,  and  then,  having  performed  these  last 
duties  for  himself,  especially  the  former,  indicative,  we 
have  often  thought,  of  the  saintly  dehcacy  of  his  natui-e, 
he  concluded  with  his  favorite  doxology,  "Glory  be  to 
God  for  all  things  that  happen ! "  sealed  it  with  "  Amen ! " 
gently  stretched  himseK  out  and  died. 

The  secrecy  with  which  he  had  been  carried  from  place 
to  place  and  the  lonely  desert  spot  where  he  breathed  his 
last  were  unable  to  prevent  an  amazing  throng  of  holy 
people  from  following  him  to  his  grave.  He  was  buried  in 
the  same  tomb  with  the  martyr  Basil,  who  had  met  him 
and  told  him  to  "be  of  good  comfort."  His  long  life  was 
packed  up  into  the  small  compass  of  fifty-two  years.  His 
remains  were  not  allowed  to  rest  in  the  obscure  spot  in 
which  they  were  interred.     When  the  Emperor  Arcadius 


His  Second  Heturn.  129 

and  his  wife  Eudoxia  had  passed  away,  and  Theodosius  the 
younger  reigned,  who  had  been  baptized  by  the  banished 
bishop,  he  was  besought  to  permit  the  restoration  of  the 
venerable  remains ;  the  request  was  instantly  granted. 
Once  more  the  Bosphorus  was  ahve  and  aglow  on  account 
of  Chrysostom  ;  but  this  time  with  a  more  melancholy 
pomj).  As  the  body  touched  the  shore,  the  young  emperor 
and  empress,  accompanied  by  their  sisters,  approached  the 
coffin  ;  he  Idssed  it ;  covered  it  with  his  imperial  cloak, 
and  implored  forgiveness  from  Heaven  for  the  wrongs  his 
parents  had  inflicted  on  the  holy  ascetic  ;  then  the  remains 
were  carried  to  their  final  resting-place.  Envy  and  malice 
had  done  their  worst. 

The  memory  of  the  holy  preacher  has  never  needed  a 
defender  ;  the  vuTdence  and  the  vice  of  party  and  power 
cast  him  down,  in  his  own  day,  but  even  then,  and  ever 
after,  his  righteousness  has  shone  forth  as  the  light.  It 
has  been  said,  the  works  of  Chrysostom  are  the  study  of  a 
lifetime  ;  they  are  voluminous  —  the  tender  bursts  of  his 
immortal  eloquence  ;  if,  occasionally,  they  seem  to  verge 
toward  inflation,  they  are  nevertheless  fine  models  of  the 
way  in  which  Christian  rhetoric  may  reach  its  most  pas- 
sionate harangue  and  declamation  ;  while,  better  still,  his 
more  calm  and  sober  moods  furnish  wiser  models  of  exposi- 
tion than  even  the  wonderful  and  manifold  pages  of  Augus- 
tine. Nothing  can  be  finer,  more  rich  m  Gospel  sweet- 
ness, and  more  elevated  in  pathos,  than  the  following  pas- 
sage on 

THE    SALVATION   OF   THE   THIEF. 

Would  you  learn  another  most  illustrious  achievement  of  the 
Cross,  transcending  all  human  thought  ?  The  closed  gate  of 
Paradise  He  has  opened  to  day  ;  for  to-day  He  has  brought  into 
it  the  thief. — Two  most  sublime  achievements  these  !  He  both 
opened  Paradise  and  brought  in  tlie  thief.  He  restored  to  him 
the  primeval  fatherland  of  man,  He  let  him  back  to  the  ancestral 
6* 


1 30      Pulpit  Monograjylis :  Clirysostom, 

city.  "  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me,"  He  says,  "  in  Paradise." 
"  What  sayest  thou  ?  Thou  art  crucified  and  fixed  to  the  Cross 
with  nails,  and  dost  thou  promise  Paradise  ?  How  wilt  thou 
confer  such  a  gift  ?"  Paul,  indeed,  says  "  He  was  crucified  in 
weakness ;"  but  hear  what  follows,  "  yet  He  liveth,"  he  says,  "  by 
the  power  of  God  ;"  and  again,  in  another  place,  "My  strength 
is  made  j>erfect  in  weakness.  Wherefore,  now  on  the  Cross,"  he 
says,  "  I  promise,  that  by  this  thou  mayest  know  my  power." 
The  spectacle  itself  is  sad :  look  not  at  w^hat  the  cross  is  in 
itself,  lest  thou  despair,  but  raise  thine  eye  to  the  power  of  the 
Crucified,  that  thy  countenance  may  gleam  with  the  radiance  of 
joy — for  this  end  he  shows  to  thee  there  his  might. 

For  it  was  not  when  raising  the  dead,  it  was  not  when  com- 
manding the  sea,  it  was  not  w^hen  chiding  demons, — but  when 
crucified,  nailed  to  the  tree,  insulted,  spit  upon,  railed  at, 
mocked,  tortured  by  all, — that  he  exerted  His  might  in  drawing 
to  himself  the  sinful  soul  of  the  thief. — See,  on  this  side  and 
that,  the  efiiilgence  of  his  power.  He  shook  creation,  rent  the 
rocks  ;  and  the  heart  of  the  thief — harder  than  rock.  He  made 
softer  than  wax.  "  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise. 
What  sayest  thou  ?  The  cherubim  and  the  flaming  sword  guard 
Paradise,  and  dost  thou  promise  admission  there  to  the  thief 'i 
Yea,  is  His  reply,  for  I  am  the  Lord  of  the  cherubim,  and  I 
have  the  power  of  flame  and  hell,  and  life  and  death.  And 
therefore.  He  says,  "  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise." 
The  moment  these  celestial  powers  behold  their  Lord,  they  will 
withdraw  and  give  place. 

Though  no  king  would  permit  a  thief  or  any  one  of  his  ser- 
vants to  occupy  the  same  seat  with  him,  and  to  ride  thus  into 
the  city,  yet  our  gracious  Lord  did  it.  For  at  His  entrance  into 
His  holy  fatherland.  He  brings  in  along  with  him  the  thief; 
not  dishonoring  Paradise  with  the  feet  of  the  thief — far 
be  it  from  Him — but  rather  in  this  way  conferring  on  it  honor. 
For  it  is  the  glory  of  Paradise  to  have  such  a  Lord,  so  full  of 
power  and  love,  as  to  be  able  to  make  a  thief  worthy  of  the  joys 
of  Paradise. 

For  when  he  called  publicans  and  harlots  into  the  kingdom, 
He  did  this  not  to  dishonor  the  kingdom,  but  to  confer  on  it  the 


The  Eloquence  of  Chrysostom,  i^  i 

highest  renown,  and  to  show  that  the  Lord  of  the  kingdom  is 
such  as  to  be  able  to  bestow  on  harlots  and  publicans  an  excel- 
lence so  perfect,  that  they  are  seen  to  be  worthy  of  the  honors 
and  gifts  that  are  there. 

As,  therefore,  we  admire  a  physician,  when  we  see  those  who 
are  laboring  under  incurable  diseases  released  from  their  mal- 
adies and  restored  to  perfect  health,  so,  beloved,  admire  Christ, 
and  be  astonished  that,  laying  His  hand  on  those  that  are  af- 
flicted with  incurable  maladies  of  the  soul,  he  has  power  to  de- 
liver them  from  the  ctUs  under  which  they  groan,  and  make 
those  who  have  reached  the  utmost  extremity  of  wickedness  fit 
for  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 

The  eloquence  of  Cln-ysostom  is  of  that  rich  order,  both  of 
expression  and  illustration,  that,  weighty  and  magnificent 
as  it  is,  it  becomes  apprehensible  by  every  order  of  mind. 

How  stirring  it  must  have  been,  in  the  ancient  Church, 
in  such  an  e]30ch,  to  have  heard  him  break  forth  in  the  fol- 
lowing exclamation,  in  which  he  contrasts  the  lamentations 
of  the  heathen  over  their  dead,  with  the  lights,  and  hymns, 
and  sacramental  service,  with  which  the  early  Christians 
celebrated  the  obsequies  of  the  departed. 

THE  BURIAL   RITES   OF   THE   EARLY   CHRISTIANS. 

Tell  me  what  mean  the  bright  shining  torches?  Do  we 
not  accompany  the  dead  as  brave  warriors  ?  What  mean  the 
hymns  ?  Do  we  not  praise  God  and  render  thanks  to  Him,  that 
He  hath  now  crowned  the  departed  ?  that  He  hath  freed  him 
from  his  sufferings,  and  hath  taken  him  from  misery  to  Himself? 
Consider  what  ye  sing  at  that  moment !  "  Return  unto  thy  rest, 
O  my  soul ;  for  the  Lord  hath  dealt  bountifully  with  thee." 
Again :  "  The  Lord  is  on  my  side ;  I  will  not  fear ;"  and  again : 
*'  Thou  art  my  hiding  place  from  the  trouble  which  encompasseth 
me."  (Ps.  cxvi.  7 ;  cxviii.  6 ;  xxxii.  7.)  Consider  what  these 
psalms  mean.  But  ye  heed  them  not  and  are  drunken  with 
grief.  Or,  regard  the  mourning  of  others,  that  ye  may  find 
therein  consolation  for  your  own.     Ye  say  ;  "  Return  unto  thy 


132      Pitlpit  MonogTaplis :  Chrysostom. 

rest,  O  my  soul ;  for  the  Lord  hath  dealt  bountifully  with  thee  1" 
and  yet  ye  weejy.     (Ps.  xvi.  7.) 

Sometimes,  mth  a  startling,  beautiful  ingenuity,  he  seized 
upon  some  little  passing  incident,  and  made  it  beautifully 
effective.  Thus  once,  while  he  was  preaching,  they  began 
to  light  the  lamps,  and  he  exclaimed : 

Let  me  beg  you  to  arouse  yourselves,  and  to  put  away  that 
sluggishness  of  mind.  But  why  do  I  say  this  ?  At  the  very  time 
w^lien  I  am  setting  forth  before  you  the  Scriptures,  you  are  turn- 
ing your  eyes  away  from  me,  and  are  fixing  them  upon  the  lamj)s, 
and  upon  the  man  who  is  lighting  the  lamps.  Oh  I  of  what  a 
sluggish  soul  is  this  the  mark,  to  leave  the  preacher  and  turn  to 
him.  I,  too,  am  kindling  the  fire  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  upon 
my  tongue  there  is  burning  a  taper,  the  taper  of  sound  doctrine. 
Greater  is  this  light,  and  better  than  the  light  that  is  yonder. 
For,  unlike  that  man,  it  is  no  wick  steeped  in  oil,  that  I  am 
lighting  up.  I  am  rather  inflaming  souls,  moistened  with  piety, 
by  the  desire  of  heavenly  discourse. 

In  this  age  of  gorgeous  household  architectui-e,  when  the 
saints  in  many  a  neighborhood  are  content  to  dwell  in  their 
ceiled  houses,  while  the  house  of  the  Lord  lies  waste,  per- 
haps some  may  read  the  following  with  pleasure  : 

THE   PALACE   OP  ABRAHAM. 

Paul,  when  exhorting  the  rich  not  to  be  hjgh-minded,  taught 
them  the  way  to  guard  against  it.  They  were  to  examine  the 
uncertain  and  treacherous  nature  of  riches.  Wlierefore  he 
said :  "  Nor  trust  in  uncertain  riches.  He  is  not  rich  who 
possesseth  much ;  but  he  who  distributeth  much.  Abraham  was 
rich,  but  loved  not  his  wealth  ;  he  regarded  not  the  house  of 
this  man,  nor  the  substance  of  that  man ;  but,  going  forth,  he 
looked  round  for  the  stranger  and  the  needy,  that  he  might 
succor  poverty  •  that  he  might  entertain  the  wayfarer.  He 
cpvered  not  hjs  ceilings  with  gold,  but  fixing  his  tent  near  the 
oak,  he  was  contented  with  the  shade  of  its  leaves.    Yet  so 


Illustrations  of  Eloquence,  1 3  ^ 

bright  was  his  dwelling,  that  angels  were  not  ashamed  to  tarry 
with  him ;  for  they  sought  not  splendor  of  abode,  but  purity  of 
soul.  Let  us,  my  beloved,  imitate  Abraham,  and  dispense  our 
goods  to  those  w^ho  are  in  need.  Rudely  prepared  was  his 
habitation,  but  more  splendid  than  the  halls  of  kings.  No  king 
ever  entertained  angels ;  but  Abraham,  sitting  under  the  oak,  and 
ha^vdng  his  tent  pitched,  was  accounted  worthy  of  that  honor. 
Neither  was  he  thus  distinguished  on  account  of  the  lowliness 
of  his  dwelling;  but  he  enjoyed  this  gift  because  of  the  j^urity 
of  his  soul,  and  the  treasures  therein  deposited.  Let  us  not 
then  adorn  our  houses,  but  rather  our  souls.  Is  it  not  a  disgrace 
thoughtlessly  to  adorn  our  walls  with  marble,  but  to  neglect  the 
necessities  of  our  Christian  brethren.  Of  what  use  to  thee,  O 
man  !  is  thy  palace  ?  Canst  thou  take  it  up  and  depart  with  it  ? 
But  thy  soul  thou  canst  take  up  entire,  and  carry  along  with 
thee.  Lo !  now  that  so  great  peril  hath  come  upon  us,  let  our 
palaces  aid  us ;  let  them  deliver  us  from  the  impending  danger, 
but  they  cannot.  And  ye  are  my  witnesses,  who,  leaving  your 
palaces  desolate,  and  flying  to  the  wilderness,  shun  them  as 
snares  and  nets.  Let  riches  now  assist  us  ;  but  the  present  is  no 
season  for  them.  If  the  influence  of  riches  be  insufiicient  to  ap- 
pease the  anger  of  man,  much  less  will  be  their  power  before  the 
divine  and  implacable  seat  of  judgment.  If  gold  now  availeth 
us  nothing  against  an  irritated  and  wrathful  man,  its  power  will 
entirely  vanish  before  the  displeasure  of  God,  who  needeth  not 
gold.  Let  us  build  houses  to  dw^ell  in,  not  to  make  of  them  a 
vain  display.  That  which  exceedeth  our  necessities  is  superfluous 
and.  useless.  Bind  on  a  sandal  larger  than  thy  foot,  and  thou 
wilt  not  be  able  to  endure  it.  It  will  impede  thy  walking. 
Thus  also  a  house  greater  than  is  necessary  impedeth  thy  pas- 
sage to  heaven.  Wouldst  thou  raise  vast  and  splendid  habita- 
tions ?  I  forbid  them  not ;  but  let  them  not  be  on  earth.  Build 
tabernacles  in  heaven, — tabernacles  impeiishable.  Why  ravest 
thou  about  transitory  things,  things  wdiich  remain  on  earth  ? 
Nothing  is  more  deceitful  than  wealth ;  to-day  with  thee,  to- 
morrow against  thee.  It  armeth  on  all  sides  the  eyes  of  the 
envious.  It  is  a  hostile  wariior  in  thine  own  tent,  an  enemy  in 
thine  own  house ;  and  ye  who  possess  it  are  my  witnesses,  who 
in  every  mode  are  burying  and  concealing  it. 


134      Pulpit  Monograms :    Clirysostom, 

The  words  and  sermons  of  Clirysostom,  like  those  of  our 
own  Reeves  or  Brookes,  are  among  the  httle  historiettes 
which  bring  vividly  before  us  the  manners,  and  vices,  and 
people  of  the  cities  in  which  he  preached.  One  of  his  biog- 
raphers says,  that  "  the  emperor,  the  commissioners,  bish- 
ops, and  prefects,  are  by  his  genius  preserved  hke  pieces  of 
sea-weed  in  amber."  And,  running  my  eye  down  several 
passages,  I  could  easily  fill  pages  with  illustrations  of  this  ; 
but  my  memoir  of  this  illustrious  Father  has  already  ex- 
tended to  too  great  a  length,  and  I  must  close  my  quota- 
tions with  a  noble  passage  poured  forth  soon  after  his  brief 
restoration  to  Constantinople : 

niS   RETURN  FROM  EXILE. 

Blessed  be  the  Lord  !  I  said  it  when  I  departed.  On  my 
return,  I  repeat  it :  and  I  ceased  not  from  saying  it  in  my  ab- 
sence. You  remember  that  on  the  last  day  I  recalled  to  you  the 
image  of  Job,  and  his  words,  "  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the- 
Lord  forever."  It  is  the  pledge  that  I  left  with  you  as  I  was 
departing ;  it  is  the  thanksgiving  that  I  bring  back  to  you. 
The  situations  are  different.  The  hymn  of  gratitude  is  the 
same.  In  exile  I  was  always  blessing.  Returned  from  exile  I 
am  blessing  still.  Winter  and  summer  work  to  the  same  end, 
the  fertility  of  the  earth.  Blessed  be  God,  who  allowed  me  to 
go  forth;  blessed  again  and  again,  in  that  he  has  called  me 
back  to  you.  Blessed  be  God  who  unchains  the  tempest :  bless- 
ed be  God  who  stills  it  and  has  made  a  calm.  ,  .  .  Through 
all  the  diversity  of  time  the  temper  of  the  soul  is  the  same ; 
and  the  pilot's  courage  has  been  neither  relaxed  by  the  calm  nor 
overwhelmed  by  the  tempest.  .  .  .  See  what  the  snares  of 
my  enemies  have  done ;  they  have  increased  affection,  and 
kindled  regret  for  me,  and  have  won  me  six  hundred  admirers. 
At  other  times  it  is  our  own  body  alone  who  love  me.  To-day, 
the  very  Jews  do  me  honor  ;  ...  it  is  not  the  enemies  that 
I  thank  for  their  change  of  mind,  but  God,  who  has  turned 
their  injustice  to  my  honor.  The  Jews  crucified  the  Lord,  and 
the  world  is  saved :  yet  it  is  not  the  Jews  that  I  thank,  but  the 


His  Faitliftdness  in  Preaching,         i  j^ 

Crucified.  May  they  see  that  which  our  God  sees  ;  the  peace, 
the  glory  that  their  snares  have  been  worth  to  me.  At  other 
times,  the  church  alone  used  to  be  filled.  Now  the  public 
square  is  become  the  church.  All  heads  are  as  immovable  as 
if  they  were  one.  All  are  silent,  though  no  one  orders  silence. 
All  are  contrite,  too.  There  are  games  in  the  circus  to-day :  but 
no  one  assists  at  them.  All  flow  to  the  temple  like  a  torrent. 
The  torrent  is  your  multitude.  The  river's  murmur  is  your 
voices,  that  rise  up  to  heaven,  and  tell  of  the  love  you  bear  to 
your  Father.  Your  prayers  are  to  me  a  brighter  crown  than  all 
the  diadems  of  earth. 

On  the  whole,  none  of  the  great  names  of  those  early 
ecclesiastical  ages  wins  from  us  more  admiration  and  affec- 
tion than  that  of  this  illustrious  man.  Great  as  he  was  as 
an  orator,  he  shines  not  merely  by  the  splendors  of  his 
rhetoric  ;  indeed,  he  steadily  resisted  the  growing,  and  too 
prevalent  idea,  that  the  Christian  teacher  should  be  a  mere 
orator.  He  reproved  the  growing  error  of  his  times,  a  pas- 
sion for  pubhc  discourses,  and  the  disposition  of  auditors, 
as  he  says,  "  to  conduct  themselves  like  spectators  at  the 
heathen  games."  He  constantly  reproved  the  disposition 
to  applaud,  and  frequently,  when  it  broke  forth  in  homage 
to  himself,  he  exclaimed,  "  The  church  is  not  a  theatre,  in 
which  we  should  Hsten  to  be  amused ;  of  what  avail  to  me 
are  those  shouts — this  applause,  this  tumult  ?  The  praise 
I  seek  is,  that  you  show  forth  in  your  works  the  thinejs  I 
have  spoken  to  you."  Applause  in  the  church,  very  com- 
mon in  his  day,  he  strongly  denounced,  as  transferring  to 
that  hallowed  place  the  laws  of  the  theatre.  He  set  a  very 
high  standard  for  the  Christian  minister :  "  Let  him,"  said 
he,  "  not  approach  the  pulpit  who  can  neither  combat  the 
enemies  of  our  faith,  nor  bring  every  thought  into  cap- 
tivity to  the  obedience  of  Christ,  nor  cast  down  vain  ima- 
ginations." When  he  spoke  of  the  preachers  in  his  time 
as  going  about  rather  after  the  fashion  of  harlots,  "  to  seek 


136      Pulpit  Monographs :  Clirysostom^ 

the  favor  of  the  people,  than  to  instruct  them,"  it  is  not 
surprising  that  rebuke  so  vehement  and  indignant  brought 
down  upon  his  head  the  condemnation  of  his  own  holiness. 
Immense  as  was  his  power  v/hile  living,  and  greater  still 
and  more  extensive  as  his  fame  has  been  since  his  death, 
Chrysostom  does  not  flatter  the  theory  of  those  who  de- 
mand a  gi'and  and  im^DOsing  figure  for  the  loftiest  oratory. 
He  was  low  of  stature  ;  his  head  w^as  big,  but  entirely  bald  ; 
his  forehead  large  and  full  of  wiinliles  ;  sfcill  more  singular, 
his  eyes  were  not  prominent^  but  deep-set,  sunk  mwards, 
though  they  are  described  as  amiable  and  affectionate,  nor 
does  his  manner  seem  to  be  that  of  which  we  speak  as  the 
"  flood  of  eloquence" — it  was  the  grandeur  of  expression, 
the  hohness  and  purity  of  -conception,  united,  of  course,  to 
a  voice  of  considerable  flexibihty  and  strength  of  tone  ; — 
nor  does  he  seem  to  have  attempted  to  inflame  the  people 
by  much  action.  Distinctness, — we  gather  to  have  been  a 
power  with  him  ;  and  in  the  old  church,  either  of  Antioch 
or  Constantinople,  we  do  not  find  it  difficult  to  conceive 
the  quiet  power  of  his  maimer,  expressing  the  delightful 
and  graceful  graciousness  of  many  a  paragraph,  or  the 
fore-finger  of  the  right  hand  elevated  till  it  clenched  the 
argument ;  or,  as  was  more  common  with  him,  expressing 
some  vehement  and  indignant  sentence  by  pressmg  it  on 
the  palm  of  the  left  hand.  He  had,  as  is  abundantly 
shown,  great  copiousness  and  plenty  of  words,  infinite 
sweetness,  and  an  impetus  of  soul  and  nervous  efficacy, 
which  gave  material  strength  to  all  his  speech.  Thus,  in 
every  x)oint  of  view,  he  compels  our  attention  ;  we  feel 
that  we  are  not  merely  with  a  man  great  in  his  own  hour, 
or  age,  or  city.  He  had,  in  a  very  eminent  degree,  the  tal- 
ents of  facihty  conjoined  to  perspicuity.  We  could  trust 
him  not  merely  when  a  multitude  has  to  be  commanded, 
but  when  a  text  has  to  be  elucidated.  Meantime,  he  also 
had,  in  a  very  eminent  degi-ee,  that  profound  intensity  of 


Compared  witli  Paul,  i  ^7 

character,  which,  we  are  persuaded,  is  the  root  of  all  tiniest 
oratory,  which  itself  is  the  organ  of  faith,  and  wliieh,  as 
in  tliis  illustrious  instance,  makes  the  life  a  high  and  noble 
consistency.  Writers  have,  ere  now,  compared  Augustine 
to  St.  John,  Clirysostom  to  St.  Paul  ;  the  correctness  of 
the  comparison  is  not,  at  first  sight,  most  distinctly  recog- 
nized ;  yet  the  more  w^e  look  uj)on  the  men,  the  more  we 
see  this  is  theii*  order  ;  and  much  m  the  history  of  the 
mind  and  life  of  Clirysostom  suggests  comparison  with 
him  whose  writings  he  most  dearly  loved  and  closely 
studied.  Of  course,  we  must  not  push  the  comj)arison  too 
far  ;  Paul  w^as  an  infinite  man.  We  have  said  already 
Chrysostom  is  the  study  of  a  lifetime ;  our  knowledge  of 
his  hfe  and  works  is  sufficient  for  the  compilation  of  this 
brief,  and  we  trust  not  unuseful  paper,  from  popular 
sources.  Those  of  my  hearers  who  desire  to  know  more, 
may  consult  the  Paris  edition  of  Bernard  Montfaugon,  a 
Benedictine  monk,  in  thirteen  foho  volumes.  Tliere  is  an- 
other, the  Eton  Saville  edition,  in  eight  folio  volumes.  We 
only  mention  these,  to  justify  the  expression  that  this 
great  Father  would  take  a  life  to  know  him  well. 


V. 

Mediaeval    and     Post- Mediaeval 
Preachers. 


ITH  the  preaching  and  the  preachers  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  most  readers  have  but  a  very  shght 
acquaintance  ;  and  many,  indeed,  fancy  that  the 
pulpit  and  its  powers  were  the  birth  of  the  Ee- 
formation,  but  this  is  far  from  true  ;  no  doubt,  the  stories 
of  the  pulpit  of  those  darker  times  are  most  inaccessible  ; 
they  are  in  other  languages,  and  buried  in  the  hbraries  of 
colleges  and  monasteries,  or  they  are  scattered  through  the 
hugh  masses  and  mcidental  references  of  miscellaneous 
church  hterature  ;  but  could  they  be  rescued  from  their  ob- 
scurity they  would  tell  a  very  wonderful  tale  of  the  power 
of  speech  in  those  rude  times.  The  accomphshed  and  la- 
mented Dr.  Neale  has  done  this  work  in  a  slight,  interest- 
ing, and  popular  book,*  and  with  this  may  be  mentioned 
another  even  more  interesting  work,  dealing  with  less 
known  names,f  by  a  scholar  whose  taste  leads  him  into  the 

*  MedicRKal  Preachers  and  Mediceval  Preaching.  A  Series  of 
Extracts,  translated  from  the  Sermons  of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  Notes 
and  an  Introduction.  By  Rev.  J.  M.  Neale,  M.A.,  Warden  of  Sack- 
ville  College. 

f  Post-Medioival  Preachers :  Some  Account  of  the  Most  Celebrated 

(138) 


Pulpit  Light  in  Dai'h  Ages,  1^9 

study  of  all  strange  folk-lore — and  truly  these  anecdotes  of 
preachers  belong  to  a  kind  and  branch  of  folk-lore — Mr. 
Baring-Gould.  Anecdotes  of  the  pulpit,  of  the  monastery, 
and  the  Cathohc  Church  are  found  strewn  along  the  pages  of 
those  immense  and  insane  piles  of  manifold  reading  and 
learning,  The  Mares  Catholici,  and  the  Compitum  of  Mr. 
Kenelm  Digby,  but  there  is  no  weU-wTOught  history  of  those 
times  ;  and  he  who  would  write  it  must  spend  his  days  and 
nights  for  a  long  time  among  dusty  piles  of  church  an- 
tiquities, and  be  a  very  Bollandist  in  industry  and  patience. 
As  these  lectures  are  not  a  course  upon  Church  History, 
so  neither  are  they  iatended  to  be  a  complete  review  of  the 
history  of  pulpit  eloquence ;  in  leaving,  therefore,  the 
earlier  ages  for  the  mediaeval,  I  do  not  feel  called  upon  to 
trace  the  distinct  links  of  instruction  which  held  together 
the  doctrines  and  teachings  of  those  times  ;  specially  when 
barbarian  hordes  were  ploughmg  up  all  the  ancient  land- 
marks of  civilization  in  Europe.  In  many  lonely  cloistered 
places  the  truth  of  form  and  the  truth  of  feeling  survived. 
The  sermons  of  the  venerable  Bede  are  known  to  us  ;  they 
are  short  and  popular.  We  must  also,  in  any  measure  of 
prejudice  we  may  feel  against  the  follies  and  falsehoods  and 
tyrannous  cruelties  of  the  Papacy,  be  wise  to  distinguish 
between  the  men  and  the  ages.  Dr.  Neander's  invaluable 
Memorials  of  the  Christian  Life  and  his  Light  shining  in  Dark 
Places  wiU  show  you  that  in  rude  times  the  "fire  the  Ke- 
deemer  came  to  kindle  on  the  earth,  among  the  human  race, 
never  ceased  to  burn,  either  with  a  clearer  or  a  duUer  flame  ; 
that  rude  stock  of  humanity  communicated  its  rudeness  to 
the  chosen  to  be  trained  by  it,  and  in  virtue  of  human 
freedom,  it  could  be  trained  in  no  other  way.  "  Christianity 
wa^  propagated  in  a  few  intelligible  doctrines  which  verified  theni- 

Preachers  of  the  l^th,  16th,  and  17th  Centuries;  with  Outlines  of 
their  Sermons  and  Specimens  of  their  Style.  By  S.  Baring-Gould, 
M.A. 


1 40     Mediceval  and  Post-Mediceval  Preachers, 

selves  as  the  power  of  God  in  tJie  souls  of  men  ;  for  the  true 
dignity  of  man  does  not  consist  in  the  harmonious  cultiva- 
tion of  all  the  moral  and  spiritual  tendencies  of  his  nature, 
but  in  the  Divine  received  into  the  interior  of  the  soul."  ^ 

There  was  darkness  enough  ;  we  do  know  they  were 
dark  ages  ;  I  especially  allude  to  the  period  from  the  sixth 
to  the  twelfth  centuries  ;  but  I  suppose  that  the  pulpit  had 
its  place  in  those  times,  and  from  the  twelfth  the  hght  be- 
gan to  stream  with  a  steady  clearness,  and  even  to  blaze. 

That  attention  was  given  to  the  art  of  reading  in  public 
and  preaching,  even  in  the  earliest  times,  is  evident  fi-om 
the  book  Be  InstUiitiojie  Clericoriiniy  by  Eabanus  Maurus, 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Mentz  ;  this  work  was  written  in 
819,  but  Dr.  Maitland,  in  his  work  on  the  Dark  Ages,  in 
quoting  it,  shows  that  for  much  of  it  Maurus  was  indebted 
to  Isidor  of  Seville,  who  wrote  more  than  two  hundred 
years  before  ;  but  volumes  might  easily  be  filled  with  ex- 
tracts illustrating  the  faith  and  the  mental  and  the  spiritual 
power  of  those,  and  the  subsequent  times,  evidenced  in  the 
words  and  the  works  of  the  pulpit,  referring  more  generally 
to  the  method  of  the  pulpit  of  those  times  ;  from  all  that 
I  know  of  it,  I  am  sorry  to  agree  with  Dr.  Neale  when  ho 
afi&rms  that  there  was  an  immense  and  intuitive  knowledge 
of  Scripture  possessed  by  those  preachers,  setting  them,  in 
these  particulars,  far  above  the  preachers  of  our  own  or  of 
any  times  since  the  Reformation  ;  there  was  a  perfect 
affluence  of  Scripture  reference  in  them  very  instructive  ; 
as  Mr.  Gould  has  said,  "  they  did  not  make  long  extracts, 
but  with  one  light  sweep  brushed  up  a  whole  bright  string 
of  sparlding  Scripture  instances,"  and  he  gives  the  follow- 
ing extract,  we  know  not  from  whom  it  is  taken  : 

"many  are  called,  but  few  ahe  chosen." 
"Noah  preached  to  the  old  world  for  a  hundred  years  the 

*  Neander's  Memorials  of  the  Christian  Life,  &c.,  p.  415. 


The  Many  Called^ — Few  Chosen,        141 

coming  in  of  the  flood,  and  how  many  were  saved  when  the 
world  was  destroyed  ?  Eight  souls,  and  among  them  was  the 
reprobate  Ham.     Many  were  called,  but  only  eight  were  chosen. 

"  When  God  would  rain  fire  and  brimstone  on  the  cities  of  the 
plain,  were  ten  saved  ?  No !  only  four,  and  of  these  four  one 
looked  back.     Many  were  called,  but  three  were  chosen. 

"  Six  hundred  thousand  men,  besides  women  and  children, 
went  through  the  Red  Sea,  the  like  figure  whereunto  Baptism 
doth  even  now  save  us.  The  host  of  Pharaoh  and  the  Egyptians 
went  in  after  them,  and  of  them  not  one  reached  the  further 
shore.  And  of  these  Israelites,  who  passed  through  the  sea  out 
of  Egypt,  how  many  entered  the  promised  land,  the  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey  ?  Two  only — Caleb  and  Joshua.  Many — 
six  hundred  thousand — w^ere  called,  few,  even  two,  were  chosen. 
All  the  host  of  Pharaoh,  a  shadow  of  those  who  despise  and  set 
at  nought  the  Red  Sea  of  Christ's  blood,  perish  without  excep- 
tion ;  of-  God's  chosen  people,  image  of  His  Church,  only  few 
indeed  are  saved. 

"  How  many  multitudes  teemed  in  Jericho,  and  of  them  how 
many  escaped  wiien  Joshua  encamped  against  the  city  ?  The 
walls  fell,  men  and  women  perished.  One  house  alone  escaj)ed, 
known  by  the  scarlet  thread,  type  of  the  blood  of  Jesus,  and 
that  was  the  house  of  a  harlot. 

"  Gideon  went  against  the  Midianites  with  thirty-two  thousand 
men.  The  host  of  Midian  w^as  without  number,  as  the  sand  of 
the  sea-side  for  multitude.  How  many  of  these  thirty-two 
thousand  men  did  God  sufier  Gideon  to  lead  into  victory?  Three 
hundred  only.  Many,  even  thirty- two  thousand  men,  were 
called ;  three  hundred  chosen. 

"  Type  and  figure  this  of  the  many  enrolled  into  the  Church's 
army,  of  whom  so  few  go  on  to  ^  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith ! ' 

"  Of  the  tribes  of  Israel  ticelve  men  only  were  chosen  to  be 
Apostles  ;  and  of  those  tAvelve,  one  was  a  traitor,  one  doubtful, 
one  denied  his  Master,  all  forsook  Him. 

"  How  many  rulers  were  there  among  the  Jews  when  Christ 
came:  but  one  only  went  to  Ifim,  and  he  he  hy  night! 

"  How  many  rich  men  were  there  when  our  blessed  Lord  walked 


142     Medioeval  and  Post-Mediceval  Preachers. 

this  earth  ;  but  one  only  ministered  unto  Him,  and  he  only  in  His 
burial ! 

"  How  many  peasants  were  there  in  the  country  when  Christ 
went  to  die ;  but  one  only  was  deemed  worthy  to  hear  His  cross ^ 
and  he  bore  it  by  constraint. 

"  How  many  thieves  were  there  in  Judcea  when  Christ  was  there ; 
but  one  only  entered  Paradise^  and  he  was  converted  in  his  last 
hour ! 

"  How  many  centurions  were  there  scattered  over  the  province ; 
and  one  only  saw  and  believed,  and  he  by  cruelly  piercing  the 
Saviour's  side ! 

"  How  many  harlots  were  there  in  that  wicked  and  adulterous 
generation  ;  but  one  only  washed  His  feet  with  tears  and  wiped 
them  with  the  hair  of  her  head!  Truly  ''Many  are  called^  but 
few  are  chosen,''  " 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  earnest  scriptural 
preaching,  and  if  the  Bible  is  the  power  of  God,  it  may 
surely  be  expected  that  such  preaching  would  be  with 
power. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  recite  aU  the  madness  of  the 
preaching  friars,  the  races  of  men  who  wandered  over 
Europe  with  the  rosary  of  St.  Dominic,  or  the  cord  of  St. 
Francis,  nor  do  I  desire  in  this  lecture  to  narrate  their 
achievements,  but  without  doubt  they  do  sufficiently  affirm 
the  power  of  speech  and  of  preaching.  Dr.  Milman  has 
shown  how  their  popular  eloquence  became  a  new  power, 
reviving  the  languid  faith,  and  rekindling  the  dying  ardor 
or  superstition  of  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Won- 
drously  from  burning  hps,  the  enthusiasm  spread ;  the 
story  of  the  preaching  orders  is  a  wonderful  chapter  in  the 
romance  of  the  pulpit,  and  if  we  smile  at,  and  even  scorn 
the  fanaticism  of  some,  it  is  impossible  to  forbear  interest 
in  the  magical  effects  of  the  harangues  of  St.  Anthony  of 
Padua,  and  the  spell  of  holiness,  which  even  now  seems  to 
attract,  in  the  life  and  words  of  St.  Bonaventura  :  we  may 


Jesus  gives  the  flavor  to  Mediceval  Sermons.  143 

laugh,  indeed,  when  the  first  preaches  in  sober  seriousness 
— and  not,  hke  his  namesake  St.  Antonio  of  Yieyra,  in 
satire  to  "the  fishes  who  approached  the  shore,  and  Hs- 
tened  to  him,  devoutly  bowing  down  their  heads,  and 
moving  very  gently."  *  But  it  is  impossible,  I  think,  to 
misunderstand  what  Bonaventura  intended  when  Thomas 
Aquinas  asked  him  whence  he  received  the  force  and  unction 
he  displayed  in  all  his  works,  and  he  pointed  to  a  crucifix 
hanging  on  the  wall  of  his  cell  and  exclaimed,  **  It  is  that 
image  which  dictates  all  my  words  to  me  ;  "  he  felt  the  presence 
of  Clirist  in  his  lonely  cell,  it  wrought  in  him,  it  wrought 
through  him,  it  was  the  passion  of  his  Kedeemer  which 
moved  his  soul,  his  life,  his  pen. 

Chi-ist,  His  name.  His  works,  did  give  unquestionably  a 
deep  and  constant  pathos  to  the  words  of  many  of  these 
preachers  ;  many  of  them  seem  to  say,  with  the  great  Ber- 
nard, "  Jesus ;  all  the  food  of  the  soul  is  dry,  if  it  be  not 
mingled  with  this  oil  ;  is  insipid,  if  it  be  not  preserved 
with  this  salt ;  if  you  write,  I  have  no  reKsh  unless  I  there 
read  of  Jesus ;  if  you  dispute  or  confer,  I  have  no  relish 
unless  in  them  I  hear  the  name  of  Jesus."  Thus  came 
their  discourses  to  be  so  eminently  Scriptural ;  thus  every 
text,  every  incident  became  hallowed  and  perfumed  with 
the  name  of  Jesus.  There  is  a  fragment  of  a  sermon  by 
GuAREic  of  Igniac,  a  friend  of  St.  Bernard,  showing  how 
we  ought  to  see  Ohiist  in  all  the  histories  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, and  the  very  text  strikes  the  note  of  the  whole  : — 

"they  told  JACOB,   SAYING,   JOSEPH  IS   YET   ALIVE." 

And  they  told  Jacoh^  saying^  Joseph  is  yet  alke^  You  will  per- 
haps say  to  me,  It  is  very  well ;  but  what  is  it  to  the  point  ? 
What  has  Joseph  to  do  with  the  joy  of  this  day  — with  the 
glory  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  ?  It  is  Easter ;  and  are  you 
still  setting  before  us  Lent  fare  ?  Our  soul  is  an  hungered  for 
the  Paschal  Lamb,  for  which  it  has  been  preparing  itself  by  so 

♦See  The  Life  of  St.  Anthony  of  Padua.    Paris,  1660. 


1 44    MedicBval  and  Post-Mediwval  Preachers. 

long  a  fast.  Our  heart  burns  within  us  for  Jesus  ;  we  desire 
Jesus  ;  if  we  do  not  as  yet  merit  to  see  Him,  at  least  we  would 
hear  of  Him.  We  hunger  for  Jesus,  not  for  Joseph ;  for  the 
Saviour,  not  for  the  dreamer ;  for  the  Lord  of  heaven,  not  of 
Egypt ;  not  for  him  who  fed  the  body,  but  for  Him  Who  feeds 
the  soul  that  is  hungry.  In  this,  at  least,  your  discourse  may 
help  us,  by  causing  that  for  Him  after  Whom  we  already  hunger 
we  should  hunger  still  more.  For  we  read  ''  Blessed  are  they 
that  hunger^  for  they  shall  be  filled.''''  When  we  hear  we  hunger 
the  more ;  for  he  who  commends  a  feast  irritates  hunger.  If 
we  were  to  hear  of  Jesus,  we  should  be  ^^  made  to  hear  of  'joy 
and  gladnesn^  that  the  bones  which  icere  brolcen  may  rejoice.'''' 
Broken  they  were  with  our  Lent  affliction  and  grief,  yet  still 
more  with  the  sorrow  of  His  Passion  ;  but  they  shall  rejoice  at 
the  tidings  of  His  Resurrection.  Why,  then,  are  you  setting 
before  us  your  Joseph,  when  we  have  no  relish  for  anything  of 
which  you  speak  except  Jesus;  especially  to-day,  when  the 
Paschal  Lamb  is  eaten,  when  Christ  our  Passover  is  sacrificed  for 
us  ?  My  brethren,  I  have  given  you  an  egg  or  a  nut ;  break  the 
shell  and  you  will  find  the  meat.  Let  Joseph  be  investigated, 
and  Jesus  will  be  discovered — the  Paschal  Lamb  after  whom 
ye  hunger;  who  has  so  much  the  more  sweetness  in  the  eating 
by  how  much  there  is  more  abstruseness  in  the  hiding,  and  dili- 
gence in  the  seeking,  and  difficulty  in  the  finding.  You  say  to 
me,  What  has  Joseph  to  do  with  Christ  ;  what  has  the  history 
which  I  proposed  to  do  with  this  day  ?  Much  in  every  way ; 
— call  to  mind  the  story,  and  the  loving  kindness  of  the  Mys- 
tery will  reveal  itself  of  its  own  accord,  if  only  ye  have  Jesus 
as  the  interpreter,  who  to-day,  rising  from  the  letter  that  Jcilleth^ 
speahs  to  His  own  in  the  way^  and  opens  to  them  the  Scriptures. 

Surely  such  passages  show  how  sweet  were  the  medita- 
tions of  many  of  these  men  amidst  their  cloisters.  They 
desired  to  speak  plainly  ;  it  was  only  in  the  latter  part  of 
that  long,  and,  to  us,  dark  age,  that  the  reproofs  of  An- 
thony of  Vieyra  became  necessary ;  that  great  preacher 
says,  and  surely  his  language  may  stand  as  a  rebuke  to 
many  of  our  modern  follies  in  this  way  : 


Mediceval  Bathos  Reproved.  \  45 

Let  us  learn  from  the  heaven  the  way  in  which  we  are  to  ar- 
range our  matter  and  our  words.  How  ought  our  words  to  be  ? 
Like  the  stars.  The  stars  are  very  distinct  and  very  clear.  So 
should  be  the  style  of  sermons ;  very  clear  and  very  distinct. 
And  have  no  fear,  lest  on  this  account  it  should  appear  low  and 
vulgar ;  the  stars,  clear  and  distinct  as  they  are,  are  most  lofty. 
Style  may  be  very  clear  and  very  lofty ;  so  clear  that  those  who 
are  ignorant  may  understand  it ;  and  so  lofty  that  those  who 
are  wise  may  have  much  to  find  out  in  it.  The  countryman 
finds  in  the  stars  rules  for  his  husbandry,  the  mariner  for  his 
navigation,  and  the  mathematician  for  his  observations  and 
judgments.  So  that  the  countryman  and  the  sailor,  who  can 
neither  read  nor  write,  understand  the  stars  ;  and  the  mathema- 
tician, who  has  read  every  book  that  was  ever  written,  does  not 
obtain  to  the  complete  understanding  of  the  constellations.  So 
a  sermon  might  be ;  stars  that  all  can  sec  and  very  few  can 
measure. 

Yes,  Father ;  but  this  way  of  preaching  is  not  *'  the  culti- 
vated style."  I  wish.it  were.  This  unfortunate  style  which  is 
now-a-days  the  fashion  is  called  cultivated  by  those  who  wish 
to  honor  it,  and  obscure  by  those  who  condemn  it.  But  even 
the  latter  do  it  too  much  honor.  .  .  .  Is  it  possible  that  we 
are  Portuguese,  and  hear  a  preacher  in  Portuguese,  and  cannot 
understand  what  he  means  ?  As  there  is  a  lexicon  for  Greek 
and  a  Calepinus  for  Latin,  so  we  want  a  vocabulary  for  the  pul- 
pit. I  could  wish  one,  at  least,  for  proper  names  :  for  our  culti- 
vated preachers  have  unbaptized  the  saints,  and  every  author 
whom  they  quote  is  an  enigma.  Thus  they  speak  of  the  Peni- 
tent Sceptre !  thus  of  the  Evangelistic  Apelles  !  thus  of  the 
Eagle  of  Africa !  of  the  Honeycomb  of  Clairvaux !  of  the  Purple 
of  Bethlehem!  of  the  Mouth  of  Gold!  And  this  they  call 
quoting !  They  say  that  the  Penitent  Sceptre  means  David,  as 
if  no  other  sceptre  ever  felt  penitence ;  that  the  Evangelistic 
Apelles  is  St.  Luke ;  the  Honeycomb  of  Clairvaux,  St,  Bernard ; 
the  Eagle  of  Africa,  St.  Augustine;  the  Purple  of  Bethlehem, 
St.  Jerome ;  the  Mouth  of  Gold,  St.  Chrysostom..  But  a  man 
might  take  it  another  way,  and  tliink  that  the  Purple  of  Beth- 
lehem was  Herod ;  the  Eagle  of  Africa,  Scipio :  the  Mouth  of 
7 


1 46    Mediaeval  and  Post-Mediceval  Preacher's. 

Gold,  Midas.  If  there  were  an  advocate  who  thus  quoted  Bar- 
tholus  or  Baldus,  would  you  trust  your  cause  in  his  hands  ?  If 
there  were  a  man  who  thus  spoke  in  conversation,  would  you 
not  consider  him  a  fool  ?  That,  then,  which  is  folly  in  conver- 
sation, why  should  it  be  wisdom  in  the  pulpit  ? 

This  reminds  us  of  a  weU-known  anecdote  of  a  young 
preacher,  or  composer  of  sermons,  who  was  reading  a  dis- 
course before  Charles  Simeon  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
his  approbation.  He  reached  the  following  passage ; 
"Amidst  the  tumult  and  the  ecstacy  of  the  children  of 
Israel,  the  son  of  Amram  stood  unmoved."  "  The  son  of 
Amram?"  exclaimed  Simeon,  "the  son  of  Amram,  who 
was  he?"  "Why,  sir,  I  meant  Moses."  "Then  if  you 
meant  Moses,  why  not  say  Moses  ?" 

The  spirit  of  clearness  and  familiarity  in  these  preachers 
led  them  to  illustrate  their  discourse  by  stories,  homely 
proverbs,  and  similes  ;  their  business  was  to  win  their  way 
to  the  hearts  of  the  poor  ;  this  is  best  illustrated  by  Mr. 
Gould ;  some  of  the  preachers  from  whom  he  cites,  and 
whose  names  were  quite  unknown  to  me,  had  in  the  pulpit, 
the  fancy  of  Hans  Andersen  ;  it  is  impossible  to  divest  the 
mind  of  the  feehng  of  an  affectionate  spirit  pervading  all 
they  said,  they  desired  to  rouse,  inform,  and  comfort,  and 
they  succeeded.  In  our  day  genius  has  been  too  proud  to 
condescend  to  the  pulpit,  or,  even  there,  to  the  poor  ;  or  if 
the  poor  are  condescended  to,  it  is  in  mistaken  language, 
as  if  they  lacked  the  power  of  the  appreciation  of  the  beau- 
tiful, the  tender,  and  the  true.  Some,  it  is  true,  stooped 
to  buffoonery,  they  loved  to  reproduce,  in  coarse  and 
homely  guise,  the  manner  of  iEjSop  ;  like  John  Rauun. 
Francis  Coster  followed  quite  another  style,  and  while  I 
will  not  commend,  or  give  my  sanction  to  it,  any  more  than 
I  would  the  deliverance  of  one  of  Mrs.  Gatty's  parables 
from  the  pulpit,  I  think,  in  a  day  when  the  pulpit  was 
everything  in  the  way  of  teaching,  when  there  was  no 


Han8  Anderson  in  tJie  Pulpit  147 

press,  no  books,  there  must  have  beeiv  those  to  whom  such 
lessons  must  have  been  very  charming,  touching  as  they 
did  the  superstitious  fancies  of  the  time.  Francis  Coster 
was  bom  in  1531,  and  died  in  1619,  aged  eighty-eight  years. 
Mr.  Gould  says,  in  introducing  the  story  : 

The  stories  Coster  tells  are  very  unequal.  There  is  one  de- 
lightful mediasval  tale  reproduced  by  him  which  I  shall  venture 
to  relate,  as  it  is  full  of  beauty,  and  inculcates  a  wholesome  les- 
son. There  is  a  ballad  in  German  on  the  subject,  to  be  found 
in  Pocci  and  Gores'  Fest  Kalender^  which  has  been  translated 
into  English  and  published  in  some  Roman  children's  books. 

The  story  was,  I  believe,  originated  by  Anthony  of  Sienna, 
who  relates  it  in  his  Chronicle  of  the  Dominican  Order ;  and  it 
was  from  him  that  the  preachers  and  writers  of  the  Middle 
Ages  drew  the  incident.  With  the  reader's  permission  I  will 
tell  the  story  in  my  own  words,  instead  of  giving  the  stiff  and 
dry  record  found  in  Coster. 

There  was  once  a  good  priesjt  who  served  a  church  in  Lusita- 
nia ;  and  he  had  two  pupils,  little  boys,  who  came  to  him  daily 
to  learn  their  letters,  and  to  be  instructed  in  the  Latin  tongue. 

Now  these  children  were  wont  to  come  early  from  home,  and 
to  assist  at  mass,  before  ever  they  ate  their  breakfast  or  said 
their  lessons.  And  thus  was  each  day  sanctified  to  them,  and 
each  day  saw  them  grow  in  grace  and  in  favor  with  God  and 
man. 

These  little  ones  were  taught  to  serve  at  the  Holy  Sacrifice, 
and  they  performed  their  parts  with  care  and  reverence.  They 
knelt  and  responded,  they  raised  the  priest's  chasuble  and  kissed 
its  hem,  they  rang  the  bell  at  the  sanctus  and  the  elevation  ;  and 
all  they  did  they  did  right  well. 

And  when  mass  was  over  they  extinguished  the  altar  lights  ; 
and  then,  taking  their  little  loaf  and  can  of  milk,  retired  to  a 
side  chapel  for  their  breakfast. 

One  day  the  elder  lad  said  to  his  master — 

"  Good  father,  who  is  the  strange  child  who  visits  us  every 
morning  when  we  break  our  fast  ?  " 

"  I  know  not,"  answered  the  priest.     And  when  the  children 


148     Mediceval  and  Post-Medmval  PreacJiers. 

asked  the  same  question  clay  by  day,  the  old  man  wondered, 
and  said,  "  Of  what  sort  is  he  ? " 

"  He  is  dressed  in  a  white  robe  without  seam,  and  it  reacheth 
from  his  neck  to  his  feet." 

"  AYhence  cometh  he  ? " 

"  He  steppeth  down  to  us  suddenly,  as  it  w^ere,  from  the  altar. 
And  we  asked  him  to  share  our  food  with  us  :  and  that  he  doth 
right  willingly  every  morning." 

Then  the  priest  wondered  yet  more,  and  he  asked,  "  Are  there 
marks  by  which  I  should  know  him,  were  I  to  see  him  ? " 

"  Yes,  Father ;  he  hath  wounds  in  his  hands  and  feet ;  and  as 
we  give  him  our  food  the  blood  flows  forth  and  moistens  the 
bread  in  his  hands,  till  it  blushes  like  a  rose." 

And  when  the  master  heard  this,  a  great  awe  fell  upon  him, 
and  he  was  silent  awhile.  But  at  last  he  said  gravely,  "  O  my 
sons,  know  that  the  Holy  Child,  Jesus,  hath  been  with  you. 
Now  when  He  cometh  again,  say  to  Him,  *  Thou,  O  Lord,  hast 
breakfasted  with  us  full  often,  grant  that  we  brothers  and  our 
dear  master  may  sup  with  Thee.' " 

And  the  children  did  as  the'  priest  bade  them.  The  Child 
Jesus  smiled  sweetly,  as  they  made  the  request,  and  replied, 
"  Be  it  so  ;  on  Thursday  next,  the  day  of  My  Ascension,  ye  shall 
sup  with  Me." 

So  when  Ascension  Day  arrived,  the  little  ones  came  very  early 
as  usual,  but  they  brought  not  their  loaf,  nor  the  tin  of  milk. 
And  they  assisted  at  ma«s  as  usual;  they  vested  the  priest,  they 
lighted  the  tapers,  they  chanted  the  responds,  they  rang  the  bell. 
But  when  the  Fax  Vobiscum  had  been  said  they  remained  on 
their  knees,  kneeling  behind  the  priest.  And  so  they  gently 
fell  asleep  in  Christ,  and  thej^,  with  their  dear  master,  sat  down 
at  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb. 

Without  some  such  illustrations  I  could  not  give  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  pulpit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  for  the  preach- 
ers recited  to  the  people  stories  and  traditions  recalled  from 
refectory  lectures  and  by  kitchen  fii'es  of  monasteries ; 
many  probably,  the  mere  invention  of  the  cloisters,  but  I 
hope  not  always  the  inventions  of  designing  men,  merely 


Tlie  Frater  Diaholus. 


149 


to  delude  and  liold  in  the  snares  of  designing  priestcraft. 
They  all  seemed,  j)riGst  and  laity,  to  hve  on  such  free  and 
easy  terms  with  the  world  of  souls  ;  and  nervous,  spiritual, 
and  uninformed  natures,  wholly  innocent  of  all  scientific 
principles,  having  no  procHvities  towards  inductive  reason- 
ing, that  I  am  sure  I  cannot  undertake  to  say  to  what  ex- 
tent they  did  or  did  not  beHeve  in  their  own  tales.  Those 
tales  vai-ied  hke  national  myths,  they  seem  to  have  been 
not  so  much  transmitted  fi'om  monastery  to  monastery,  as 
to  have  been  indigenous  to  many.  Some  of  them  very  hkely 
were  always  mtended  to  be  a  land  of  scarcely  veiled  parable  ; 
one  of  the  best  known,  is  that  which  passed  into  the  ^lag- 
num  Specvlurriy  from  the  pages  of  St.  Antoninus  of  Flo- 
rence. It  is  the  story  of  a  gxeat  preacher,  and  the  fame  he 
acquned,  and  who  at  last  he  turned  out  to  be — and  the 
most  cautious  and  cultivated  minds  need  not  disdain  the 
evident  lesson  the  story  tells.  A  great  preacher  was  ex- 
pected at  a  certain  priory  church,  but  at  the  very  hour 
when  the  people  expected  his  discourse  he  feU  sick — preach- 
ers were  not  more  ready  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  then, 
than  now — the  prior  was  distressed,  and  knew  not  what  to 
do  ;  when  at  that  very  moment  there  came  to  the  door  of 
the  priory  a  strange  brother  in  the  garb  of  the  order.  He 
saw  the  distress  of  the  prior  and  inquired  into  its  cause. 
''  Ah  !  "  said  he  v^ry  piously,  "  you  must  trust  in  the  Lord  ; 
I  hope  that  God  by  me  will  supply  this  want  of  yours. 
Let  me  enter  into  your  hbrary  for  a  few  moments.  You 
need  not  toll  the  bell  longer  than  usual,  I  shall  be  ready." 
"  Thanks  !  thanks ! "  said  the  prior,  as  he  led  the  strange 
brother  into  the  hbrary.  Arrived  there,  he  turned  over  the 
Summa  of  St.  Thomas,  and  the  works  of  Albert  the  Great ; 
and,  in  a  few  moments  he  was  ready  ;  the  strange  Frater 
was  in  the  pulpit  ;  it  was  indeed  the  Frater  Diabolus.  He 
talked  wondrously  on  the  joys  of  paradise,  and  the  j)ains 
of  hell,  and  the  sin  and  the  misery  of  the  world ;  and  he 


1 5  o     MedicBval  and  Post-MedicBval  Preachers. 

moved  all  present  to  tears  and  compunction  by  his  elo- 
quence ;  but  there  was  a  holy  man  present  who  Iniew  him, 
and  while  he  wondered,  he  waited  to  mark  the  result. 
After  the  sermon  he  approached  the  Frater  Diabolus. 
"Oh!  thou  accursed  one,"  said  he,  "vile  deceiver,  how 
couldst  thou  take  this  office  upon  thee,"  And,  adjured  so, 
Frater  Diabolus  rephed,  "  Think  you  my  discourse  would 
prevent  a  single  soul  from  seeking  eternal  danmation? 
Not  so  ;  the  most  finished  eloquence  and  profoundest  learn- 
ing are  worthless  beside  one  drop  of  unction,  there  was  no 
unction  in  my  sermon.  You  see  how  I  have  moved  the 
people,  but  they  will  forget  all,  they  will  practise  nothing, 
and  hence  all  the  words  they  have  heard,  will  serve  to  their 
greater  judgment ; "  with  which  words  Frater  Diabolus 
vanished.  As  much  as  we  insist,  it  was  insisted  in  those 
days,  that  the  preacher  should  be  a  builder,  not  of  words, 
but  of  life  and  of  character,  nor  did  he  disdain  to  talk 
with  peasants  by  the  wayside,  with  children  on  the  grassy 
knoll,  or  rustic  laborers  following  the  plough.  One  of  them 
said,  "  A  spiritual  pastor,  hke  a  real  shepherd,  should  carry 
bread  and  salt  in  a  bag,  that  is  the  bread  of  good  life  and 
discretion ;  he  should  use  water  for  drink,  that  is,  hvmg 
water  ;  he  should  eat  green  herbs,  that  is,  have  provision 
of  good  examples ;  he  should  keep  a  dog  to  guard  the 
sheep,  that  is,  a  learned  tongue  ;  he  should  wear  coarse 
raiment,  and  a  leathern  girdle,  indicating  that  he  despises 
earthly  pleasures  and  subdues  the  flesh  ;  he  should  sleep 
under  a  low  roof,  implying  that  he  has  no  remaining  city 
but  sighs  after  Heaven  ;  he  should  have  straw  for  his  bed, 
as  significative  of  living  an  austere  fife  ;  and  trees  and 
leaves  for  sheets  in  heat,  representing  the  words  of  Scrip- 
ture which  are  his  covering  and  defence ;  he  should  have 
a  crook  for  a  staff,  as  implying  his  dependence  on  the  cross  ; 
a  pipe  to  play  on  to  collect  the  flock,  denoting  the  voice  of 
praise  and  prayer  ;  and  a  sling  for  the  wolf,  to  signify  the 


Tlie  Great  Friar  Preacliers.  1 5 1 

justice  with  which  which  he  may  put  to  flight  the  devil."* 
I  know  of  no  work  which  does  any  justice  to  the  pulpit 
of  the  mediaeval  times,  or,  indeed,  to  the  history  of  the 
pulpit  of  any  age  ;  the  best  is  that  by  Dr.  Lenz,f  but  it  is 
brief  and  quite  insufficient ;  and  innumerable  names  find 
no  mention  at  all,  although  occu^^ying  a  large  share  of  the 
attention  of  their  times.  What  do  we  now  know  of  Berthold 
of  Ratisbon — of  the  age  of  Frederick  11.  of  Germany, 
whose  tomb  is  still,  I  beheve,  to  be  seen  at  Ratisbon  with 
its  inscription,  "Bertholdus  Magnus  Predicator?"  We 
only  know  that  sixty,  and  sometimes  a  hundred  thousand 
persons  assembled,  hoping  to  see  him,  or  to  hear  his  voice  ; 
and  that  still,  in  Bohemia,  a  field  near  Glatz,  where  he  used 
to  preach,  is  called  the  field  of  Berthold  to  this  day. 
Great  preachers  in  those  ages  were  regarded  with  the  en- 
thusiasm which  waits  on  great  conquerors — they  received 
the  highest  honors,  and  wealthy  cities  contended  for  the 
honor  of  hearing  them.  They  were  often  great  and  mar- 
vellous missionaries  too,  and  a  halo  of  splendor  and  holy 
mysticism  surrounds  the  memory  of  such  men  as  St.  Adal- 
bert, the  Apostle  of  Prussia,  or  John  Corvino,  the  mission- 
ary to  the  Tartars,  or  St.  Gall  ;  the  words  of  such  men 
were  so  persuasive  and  eloquent,  that  voices,  it  is  said,  were 
heard  over  the  tops  of  the  tall  mountains,  and  moumfnl 
elegies  through  the  woods  and  forests  in  the  silence  of  the 
night,  as  if  the  broken  idols  were  wailing  amidst  the  accla- 
mations of  the  people  who  had  cast  them  into  the  fire,  and 
into  the  water,  at  the  call  of  the  preachers.  Such  also 
were  the  effects  which  in  later  years  followed  the  words  of 
the  great  preachers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  they  appeared 
in  the  rude  or  rich  cathedrals,  or  the  market-places,  and 
great  broadways  of  French,  Italian,  or  German  cities.     It 

^BuccMus — 27ie  Book  of  Golden  Conformity,  quoted  in  Compitum. 
\Gesc7tichte  der  Chnstlichen  IlomUetik,  <&c.,  von  C.  H.  G.  Lenz. 


1^2     Medicevctl  and  Post  Mediceval  Preachers. 

was  so  with  Beenaedine  of  Sienna.  At  Bologna,  it  is  said, 
ail  tlie  dice  tables  were  brought  out  and  thrown  into  a  vast 
fire  in  the  centre  of  the  square  ;  and  after  preaching  in 
Florence,  in  the  great  square  of  Santa  Croce,  the  hsteners 
erected  a  monument  on  the  spot,  on  which  w^as  inscribed 
only  the  name  of  Jesus  ;  and  it  was  so  with  Ai^thony  of 
Padua,  a  name  associated  in  our  memory  with  much  super- 
stition ;  but  who,  after  preacliing  in  Pavia,  burnt,  in  one 
fire,  objects  of  licentiousness  to  the  value  of  two  thousand 
pieces  of  gold  ;  and,  after  his  Sermons  in  Sienna,  Modena, 
Perugia,  committed  to  the  flames  immense  piles  of  what 
were  termed  the  Castles  of  Satan:  books — Ovid,  Martial^ 
Boccaccio — and  cards,  ornaments  and  treatises  of  magic 
and  necromancy.  It  is  marvellous  to  hear  of  twenty  thou- 
sand persons  assembling  to  hear  him  ;  rising  by  night  and 
hastening  by  the  hght  of  lanterns  to  secure  good  places  in 
the  field  in  which  he  was  to  preach  ;  while  the  shops  of  the 
cities  were  closed  and  all  business  suspended  We  smile 
at  it,  and  perhaps  do  not  regret  that  we  have  nothing  like 
it  now,  or  only  by  very  remote  resemblance  ;  but  surely  it 
illustrates  the  wonderful  power  of  the  preacher.  These 
preachers  attacked  and  reformed  the  vices  of  the  ages. 
Their  sermons,  like  those  of  Savonaeola,  combated  the 
vices  and  the  foUies  of  the  times — indecent  ceremonies,  ri- 
diculous dresses,  the  painting  of  the  face,  the  decorating 
the  hair — in  many  ways  they  had  a  faithfulness  which  would 
finish  the  popularity  of  a  great  preacher  now. 

It  win  be  very  possible,  in  referring  to  the  history  of  the 
pulpit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  find  much  to  condemn  or  to 
take  exception  to  ;  but  the  pulpit  was  a  great  power,  and  it 
was  a  power  because  it  aimed  at  the  consciences  of  men. 
Thomas  a  Kempis  was  simiamed  the  "  Hammer,"  from  the 
force  with  which  he  struck  the  hearts  of  sinners.  Phhjp 
Neei  preached  a  sermon  on  non-residence  before  Pope 
Gregory,  and  thirty  bishops,  it  is  said,  started  to  thek 


The  Great  Friar  Preachers. 


153 


episcopates  the  next  day  ;  they  were  strange  men,  no  doubt, 
often  carried  out  of  themselves,  even  unto  very  questionable 
speeches,  as  St.  Fea^^cis,  who  commenced  a  sermon  at 
Spoletto,  "  Angels,  men,  devils  ; "  bad  taste,  and  we  wonder 
at  it,  but  the  effect  produced  by  the  sermon  was  not  less 
marvellous ;  the  preacher,  we  are  told,  found  the  whole 
city  rent  and  confused,  torn  with  dissensions  and  enmities, 
and  all  parties  by  this  sermon  were  reunited  in  love,  and  a 
band  of  sanguinary  robbers  transformed  into  pacific  and 
blessed  men.  Time  would  quite  fail  to  tell  of  these 
preachers ; — of  FexyEocco,  a  celebrated  Dominican  preacher, 
a  sort  of  spiritual  Joe  Miller  ;  he  preached  a  celebrated 
penitential  sermon  on  one  occasion,  all  the  audience  were 
in  teiTor  and  fell  on  their  knees  ;  while  showing  every  sign 
of  contrition,  he  cried,  "  All  who  are  truly  penitent,  hold  up 
your  hands." — Every  man  in  the  vast  multitude  held  up  his 
hand  ;  then  he  said,  "  Holy  Archangel  Michael,  thou  who 
with  adamantine  sword  standest  at  the  judgment  seat  of 
God,  cut  me  off  every  hand  which  has  been  held  up  hypo- 
critically."— Every  hand  dropped.  Kor  can  we  omit  to 
mention  the  name  of*  St.  Bernardine  of  Sienna,  who 
imagined  himseK  only  fit  to  x^reach  in  small  rustic  towns 
in  the  height  of  his  celebrity ;  of  Bernardine  of  Monte 
Eeltro,  who  traversed  Italy  in  all  dkections,  and  travelled 
on  foot,  through  snow  and  rain,  over  rock  and  marsh ; 
of  Jerome  of  St.  Saviour,  also  one  of  those  marvellous 
mystic  men  ;  then  there  was  another  preacher,  his  con- 
temporary, Aretinus,  to  whom  one  said,  "  Those  who  hear 
Jerome  are  changed  into  other  men,  they  become  devout 
in  manner  and  contrite  in  spirit ;  those  who  hear  you 
depart  joyous  and  talkative,  but  they  do  not  correct  their 
ways."  And  Aretinus  replied,  "  I  will  not  deny  my  poverty 
and  his  virtues  :  what  I  find  in  books  I  bring  forth  with 
no  fervor,  nor  do  I  kindle  those  flames  in  myself  which 
I  ought  to  excite  in  others.  I  am  a  coal  but  almost  ex- 
7* 


154    Mediceval  and  Post-Mediceval  P readier 8. 

tinct.  How  should  I  kindle  my  wood,  but  that  poor  and 
simple  man  is  all  burning,  and  all  the  sparks  of  his  love 
kindle  to  a  flame  the  cold  fuel."  This  was  that  Jerome 
of  whom  it  was  said,  "  Go  and  hear  the  preacher  of  the 
best  sentences,  but  the  worst  rhetoric  ;  gather  the  fruit  and 
neglect  the  leaves  ; "  and  even  dukes  and  senates  followed 
him  when  his  sermons  were  ended.  I  wish  that  we  had 
a  more  comprehensive  account  than  has  yet  been  pubhshed 
of  these  great  preachers  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Amidst  all 
the  abuses  I  am  compelled  to  see  more  than  sacred 
eloquence,  religious  power :  it  is  a  study  in  itself  to 
contemplate  the  studies  of  these  men.  Meditation,  long 
meditation,  and  painful  searching  of  Scripture  marked  them 
all,  or  almost  alL* 

In  many  other  instances,  however,  we  shall  find  that  the 
ministry  has  been  power  in  proportion  as  it  has  been  the 
work  of  the  conscience  upon  the  conscience.  This  is  the 
truth  of  all  true  preaching  ;  it  is  a  strange  instrument  for 
the  Divine  Spirit  to  play  on,  "the  foohshness  of  preach- 
ing," but  God  does  use  it  as  a  divine  instrument.  Like  the 
harp  or  the  organ,  preachers  are  only  the  subjects  of  the 
fingers  invisible  to  themselves.  When  Jerome  asked 
Gregory  of  Nazianzen  the  meaning  of  a  passage  in  Luke, 
he  referred  him  to  the  exposition  he  would  give  of  it  in 
the  church  ;  and  there  is,  no  doubt,  as  much  difference 
between  the  private  exhortation  and  the  pubHc  preaching, 
as  between  private  and  public  prayer ;  the  sense  climbs 
higher  and  sinks  deeper. 

One  of  these  preachers  of  the  post-mediaeval  times,  most 
remarkable  and  most  woi-thy  of  imitation,  and  now,  by  an 
admirable   translation,    most    accessible,    is    the    Father 

*  The  long  and  curious  account  of  many  of  these  forgotten  men 
in  the  Mores  Catholici^  or  Ages  of  FaitJi,  is,  of  course,  by  a  most 
intolerant  Papist ;  but  it  is  very  interesting.  See  Vol.  ii.,  Book  vi., 
Chap.  V. 


Father  Segneri,  i^^ 

Segneri,  he  did  not  indeed  appear  until  tlie  seventeenth 
centm-y  ;  his  sermons  are  pervaded  by  intense  earnestness, 
and  justify  the  tradition  that  he  was  inflamed  when  young 
by  a  holy  missionary  ardor  to  follow  in  the  steps  and  career 
of  Francis  Xavier.f  He  was  a  Jesuit,  and  after  he  was 
ordained  a  priest,  while  he  spent  the  haK  of  every  year  in 
the  meditative  life  of  a  recluse,  he  gave  the  other  half  to 
the  task  of  traversing  the  towns,  cities,  and  villages  of  Italy 
as  a  home  missionary.  He  died  in  1694  He  has  been 
caUed  "  the  restorer  of  Itahan  eloquence."  He  certainly 
was  a  great  pulpit  reformer.  He  set  Chrysostom  before 
himself  as  his  model,  but  he  studied  so  closely  as  to  become, 
while  dignified  and  serious,  colloquial  and  easy  in  his  style ; 
in  an  age  of  great  licentiousness  he  rebuked  with  most 
remarkable  vigor,  and  strength,  and  boldness,  the  sins 
of  the  age.  Of  course,  being  a  Eomanist,  the  Protestant 
will  find  many  things  in  these  sermons, — stories,  traditions, 
references  to  the  hves  of  the  saints,  which  will  not  only  bo 
displeasing,  but  even  false,  from  our  point  of  view,  but  they 
are  remarkable  pieces  of  faithful  and  firm  handhng  of  the 
consciences  of  hearers,  they  may  even  be  commended  as 
especially  suitable  as  models  for  our  own  times  ;  there  is  a 
very  striking,  happy,  and  impressive  deahng  with  Scripture  ; 
as  with  aU  the  great  mediaeval  preachers,  there  is  remark- 
able freedom  too  in  the  handling  of  Scripture  ;  and  in  the 
whole  conduct  of  the  discourse,  whatever  the  topic  or  text, 
these  men  wandered  with  great  ease  through  innumerable 
ways  branching  out  from  it.  I  admire  Segneri ;  it  is  im- 
possible— even  reading,  and  reading  through  a  translation 
— not  to  be  carried  away  irresistibly  by  his  earnestness  ;  he 
allows  no  time  for  thought,  he  permits  to  his  hearers  no 
self-complacent  survey  of  their  own  position,  possessions, 

f  See  tlie  edition  in  English,  The  Quaresimale  of  P.  Paolo 
Segneri,  translated  from  the  origin  Italian,  by  James  Ford,  A.M., 
Prebendary  of  Exeter  Cathedral.     Three  Vols. 


1^6     Mediceval  and  Post-Mediceval  Preacher's. 

or  attainments  ;  firm  himself,  and  self-assured  in  e-very 
word,  he  uses  all  his  words  with  the  }30wer  of  a  master, 
they  are  like  lightning  in  the  severity  with  which  they 
search  out  the  subterfuges  of  the  soul,  and  set  before  it  its 
sins  ;  there  is  tenderness  and  love  too,  but  the  precious 
cup  of  consolation  is  only  offered  after  the  hearer  is  made 
to  drink  of  the  wine  of  astonishment.  Hell  was  a  great 
reahty  to  him,  his  pictures  and  personifications  of  HeU 
were  very  daring — as  in  the  following  passage,  in  which  he 
deals  with  a  well-known  passage  in  Isaiah,  often,  both  by 
Protestant  as  well  as  by  Papist  preachers,  misquoted  and 
inverted  : — 

What  then,  after  all,  have  I  this  morning  to  do,  but  pour  forth 
two  copious  streams  of  inconsolable  grief  for  the  many  souls, 
who  see  hell  open  before  them,  and  yet  do  not  draw  back,  but 
boldly  i)ress  on  to  launch  themselves  into  its  flames  ?  Ah,  no : 
stop,  ye  wretched  beings,  for  a  moment ;  stop  I — and,  before 
plunging  with  a  headlong  leap  into  that  abyss,  let  me  demand 
of  you  in  the  words  of  the  same  Isaiah —  Which  of  you  can  dwell 
with  the  devouring  fire  ?  Which  of  you  can  dwell  with  everlasting 
Inirnings  (xxxiii.  14,  Vulg.)  ?  Excuse  me,  my  people ;  for  this 
once  you  are  not  to  leave  the  Church,  unless  you  have  first  made 
a  satisfactory  reply  to  my  demand — Which  of  you  can  dwell  icith 
everlasting  hurnings?  What  sayest  thou,  O  lady,  who  art  so 
tender  in  cherishing  thy  flesh  ? — Canst  thou  dwell  with  everlast- 
ing lurnings  ?  Now  thou  canst  not  bear  it,  should  the  point 
of  a  needle  at  thy  work  lightly  stain  thy  delicate  skin.  How 
thinkest  thou  then  ?  Wilt  thou  be  able  to  endure  those  terrific 
engines,  by  which  thou  must  feel  thyself  dismembered,  disjoint- 
ed, and  with  an  everlasting  butchery  crushed  into  powder? 
What  sayest  thou,  O  man,  who  art  so  intent  on  providing  for 
thy  personal  comforts  ?— Canst  thou  dioell  with  cxerTasting 
hurnings  ?  Now  thou  canst  not  tolerate  the  breath  of  a  poor 
man,  who  by  coming  near  thee  in  the  least  ofiends  thy  organs 
of  smell.  Wilt  thou  be  able  to  stand  those  foul  stenches,  by 
which  thou  must  feel  thyself  poisoned,  stifled,  and  with  an 
everlasting  suffocation  pressed  down  to  the  ground  ?  And  thou, 


The  Italian  Whitefield,  157 

wliat  sayest  thou  for  thyself,  O  priest,  who  art  so  negligent  in 
the  discharge  of  thy  duties  ?—  Canst  thou  dwell  iclth  everlasting 
hnrnings  ?  ISTow  thou  art  not  able  to  remain  in  the  choir  of  thy 
church  a  single  hour  without  looking  indecently  about  thee, 
without  being  restless,  without  indulging  thy  tongue  in  every 
kind  of  gossip.  How  then  does  it  strike  thee?  Wilt  thou  be 
able  to  remain  through  all  the  ages  of  eternity,  I  say  not,  re- 
clining on  thy  elegantly  carved  stall,  but  rather  stretched  out 
on  an  iron  frame-work,  on  a  bed  of  flames,  there  to  be  listening 
to  the  demon's  howls  ringing  in  thy  ears  ?  What  sayest  thou, 
O  glutton  ?  What  sayest  thou,  O  slandertir  ?  What  sayest  thou, 
O  libertine  ? — thou  young  man,  luxuriating  so  wantonly  in  all 
thy  heart's  desires  ? — Canst  thou  diDell  lolth  cverlaHting  lurnings? 
Alas  !  w^ho,  who  among  us  can  ?  And  yet,  why  do  I  thus 
enlarge  on  the  case  of  other  people  ?  Excuse  me :  of  myself, 
of  myself  I  ought  to  speak ;  of  myself,  an  ecclesiastic  it  is  true, 
as  cannot  be  denied  from  ray  dress,  and  yet  a  wretched  creature, 
so  unmortified,  so  headstrong,  so  vain,  so  averse  to  that  true 
penitence,  which  my  sins  demand  of  me  1  If  I  am  not  able  to 
remain  for  a  short  time  before  the  presence  of  my  Lord  in  tears 
for  my  sins,  if  I  am  so  fond  of  my  own  ease,  if  I  am  so  studious 
of  my  own  reputation,  how  can  I  hereafter,  wretch  that  I  am, 
stand  fixed  for  ever  and  ever  at  the  feet  of  Lucifer,  the  place 
assigned  to  such  as  myself,  to  such,  as  having  undertaken  to 
confer  benefits  on  other  men  and  been  gifted  accordingly  for 
that  purpose  w^ith  so  much  light  and  knowledge,  and  so  many 
endowments,  have  betrayed  my  vow  by  my  actions  ?  Ah,  Lord, 
have  pity,  have  pity !  We  have  sinned ;  w^e  know  it;  we  confess 
it.  "  We  have  done  ungodly,  we  have  dealt  unrighteously  in  all 
thy  ordinances "  (Baruch  ii.  12).  And  therefore  we  cannot 
make  bold  to  ask  Thee  not  to  punish  us.  Punish  us,  then,  since 
we  well  deserve  it.  Eeward  the  i)roud  after  their  deserving 
(Ps.  xciv.  2).  Only,  in  Thine  infinite  mercy,  may  it  please  Thee 
not  to  sentence  our  souls  to  hell.  O  hell,  O  hell,  the  mere 
mention  of  thee  is  enough  to  overwhelm  us  with  horror  !  This 
is  the  punishment,  from  which,  not  for  our  merit's  sake,  but  for 
the  sake  of  Thy  agony,  for  the  sake  of  Thy  bloody  sweat,  we 
entreat  Thee  to  deliver  us.     0  Lord^  correct  me,  hut  with  jfidg- 


1^8     Mediceval  and  Post-Mediceval  Preachers. 

ment ;  not  in  Thine  anger ^  lest  Thou  hring  me  to  nothing  (Jer.  x. 
24).  Behold  us  willing  to  suffer  in  this  life  the  worst  it  may 
please  Thee  to  bring  upon  us;  here,  lay  Thy  rod  upon  us: 
"  Consume  us  here,  cut  us  to  pieces  here ;  only  spare  us  in 
Eternity"  (S.  Augustine)  !  Send  us  poverty  now;  that  we  may 
be  spared  in  Eternity.  Send  us  reproach  now ;  that  we  may  be 
spared  in  Eternity.  Send  us  sickness  now;  that  we  may  be 
spared  in  Eternity.  Send  us  just  as  many  evils  as  may  please 
Thee,  in  this  world,  provided  we  be  spared  for  ever  in  the  world 
to  come — that  we  may  be  spared  in  Eternity !  that  we  may  be 
spared  in  Eternity. 

This  preacher  had  a  very  impressive  and,  usually,  a  very 
real  and  natural  way  of  turning  the  incidents  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  account  for  the  purpose  of  alarming  the  con- 
science. 

THE   FALL   OP  JERICHO. 

No  one  can  know  for  a  certainty  when  that  day  will  be,  which 
God  has  appointed  for  the  exercise  of  a  vengeance,  terrible  in 
proportion  as  it  is  delayed.  This  must  depend  upon  the  secret 
disposal  of  those  judgments,  which  the  Father  hath  placed  in  His 
own  poicer.  (Acts  i.  7.)  For  even  the  heathen  could  say,  "  The 
gods  have  feet  of  wool."  Hence  they  step  so  softly  over  thy 
head,  that  with  thy  utmost  attention,  thou  art  not  aware  of  their 
approach.  Nothwithstanding,  if  with  any  probability  we  may 
infer  the  future  from  the  past,  according  to  the  famous  saying  of 
S.  Jerome,  "  Things  future  are  known  by  things  past,"  I  think 
we  may  designate  the  very  hour  with  some  probability  at  least, 
if  not  with  certainty.  Attend,  that  you  may  know  when  that 
hour  will  be.  All  among  you  must  well  remember  the  wonder- 
ful manner  in  which  the  city  of  Jericho  was  assaulted  by  the  sol- 
diers of  Joshua.  He  had  given  orders  that,  during  the  space  of 
seven  mornings,  they  should  carry  the  Ark  in  circuit  round  the 
walls,  that  the  armed  troops  should  go  before,  that  the  unarmed 
people  should  follow  after,  and  that  the  Priests,  every  time  of 
their  going  the  round,  should  cause  the  trumpets  to  sound.  This 
was  accordingly  done  !  and  precisely  on  the  seventh  day,  at  the 
sound  of  those  trumpets,  the  walls  fell  down  and  the  city  was 


On  ilie  Fall  of  Jericho,  i^g 

taken.  Permit  me  now,  in  my  own  way,  to  offer  a  few  weighty 
observations  upon  this  victory,  generally  so  well  known.  The 
first  morning,  when  the  besieged  people  of  Jericho  beheld  from 
the  top  of  their  walls  that  imposing  array  and  heard  those 
trumpets,  what  a  terrible  panic  must  the  poor  souls  have  suf- 
fered !  They  must  have  fancied  that  the  soldiers  were  even  al- 
ready deploying  for  the  attack,  even  already  leaping  on  the  ram- 
parts, even  already  scaling  the  very  battlements.  But  when  they 
soon  afterwards  perceived  that  all  this  noise  was  followed  by  no 
practical  effect,  they  must  have  begun  to  breathe  a  little  more 
freely.  The  i^econd  morning,  when  they  witnessed  a  like  repeti- 
tion of  the  same  performance,  their  fears  must  have  assumed  the 
form  of  surprise ;  not  one  among  them  being  able  to  compre- 
hend what  was  the  meaning  of  this  clamorous  demonstration 
that  all  ended  in  nothing.  The  tliird  morning  their  surprise 
must  have  degenerated  into  a  disposition  to  smile  ;  as  was  na- 
tural to  people,  who  now  knew  by  repeated  proof  that  the  whole 
assault  vented  itself  in  empty  sound.  But  then,  the  fourth  morn- 
ing, and  the  fifth^  and  the  sixth^  when  the  besieged  had  more 
thoroughly  recovered  their  spirits ;  only  conceive  what  must 
have  been  the  laughter,  the  ridicule,  the  hisses,  and  the  shout- 
ings, with  which  they  saluted  the  enemy  from  their  heights.  I 
can  quite  realize  the  scene  to  my  mind.  "  Yes,"  they  in  all 
likelihood  exclaimed,  "  these  fine  trumpets  of  theirs  sound  beau- 
tifully. Take  notice  of  their  new  invention  for  taking  cities,  not 
by  the  force  of  battering  trains,  but  by  the  effect  of  sound ! 
Blow  on  merrily  by  all  means ;  for  while  you  are  blowing  we  can 
be  dancing.  Why,  what,  in  all  seriousness,  do  you  mean  by 
this  ?  To  frighten  us  out  of  our  wits  by  your  noise,  when  you 
are  unable  to  subdue  us  by  your  valor  ?  We  are  none  of  those 
big,  stupid  birds,  who  are  brought  down  from  their  nests  by 
mere  dint  of  clattering  noises.  If  you  have  the  hearts  of  men, 
take  the  trumpets  out  of  your  mouth  ;  come  on,  sword  in  hand  ; 
and  then  we'll  believe  you."  Thus  with  every  possible  insult 
they  may  have  cried  aloud  from  their  walls  during  those  days. 
But,  if  at  any  time  their  fear  must  have  been  at  the  lowest 
point  and  their  raillery  at  the  highest,  it  was,  if  I  mistake  not, 
on  the  morning  of  the  seventh  day,  preceded,  as  that  day  had 


1 6o     Mediceval  and  Post-Medicevvl  P readier s. 

been,  by  so  many  circumstances  calculated  to  embolden  tlieir 
minds  under  a  feeling  of  their  security.  And,  behold,  it  was  on 
that  tery  morning  that  the  entire  overthrow  of  their  city  took 
place.  At  the  seventh  time^  when  the  priests  llew  with  the  trumiyets, 
the  icallfell  down  flat.  (Josh.  vi.  16-20.)  Now,  you  will  con- 
ceive, whether  this  overthow  was  not  all  the  more  terrible  from 
its  being  the  less  expected.  The  wretched  inhabitants  find  them- 
selves with  a  smile  on  their  lips,  when,  on  a  sudden,  behold  their 
bastion  wall  tumbling  down,  their  towers  falling  headlong,  and 
themselves,  too,  involved  in  the  dreadful  crash.  And  then — 
what  with  the  groans,  of  some,  who  were  wounded,  of  others, 
who  were  mangled  to  pieces,  of  others,  who  were  smashed  under 
the  ruins^one  simultaneous,  universal  outcry  of  distress  must 
have  deafened  the  air  and  aflfrighted  the  very  stars.  The 
Israelites,  in  the  meantime,  each  soldier  at  his  proper  i3ost, 
pushed  forward  intrepidly  over  the  gaping  breach,  and  making 
their  way  over  the  bodies  of  the  enemy  buried  before  they  w^ere 
dead,  advanced  with  their  pikes  lowered  and  their  swords 
drawn.  Taking  different  directions,  they  penetrated  into  the 
private  dwellings,  and  scattered  on  every  side  blood,  on  every 
side  havoc,  on  every  side  death,  they  quickly  reduced  the  city  to 
complete  desolation.  ****** 
What  was  it  you  wished  to  learn  from  me,  my  dear  Sirs  ? — 
The  time  when  destruction  shall  overtake  the  wicked  ?  Do  you 
know  when  it  will  be  ?  Why,  when  it  overtook  the  people  of 
Jericho ;  which  is  tantamount  to  saying  with  the  prophet  Isaiah, 
at  the  time  when  they  were  least  thinking  about  it;  whose 
breaking  cometh  suddenly  at  an  instant.  (Isaiah  xxx.  13.) 
*  *  H-  In  i\^Q  midst  of  your  merriment  the  wrath  of  heaven 
shall  fall  on  you ;  and  when  you  perceive  how,  all  of  a  sudden, 
such  irrecoverable  ruin  has  overtaken  you,  "  Alas !  alas !"  you 
will  exclaim,  "  w^e  are  lost  and  undone  !  See  the  blood,  see  the 
slaughter,  see  the  havoc,  see  the  desolation,  see  the  flames,  see 
the  plagues,  see  the  death !"  and  amidst  such  outcries  as  these, 
stunned  and  stupified,  you  will  terminate  your  lives,  condemned, 
so  to  speak,  even  before  you  die.  *  *  *  When  they  shall  say, 
peace   and  safety — {yeace  now,   safety  hereafter)— tA^;i  sudden 

destruction  cometh  upon  them and  they  shall  not  escajic. 

(1  Thess.  V.  3.) 


The  SouVs  Flight  from  Earth  to  Heaven.  i6i 

These  are  very  fair  illustrations  of  the  method  of  this 
great  Whitefield  of  the  Itahan  pulpit ;  here  he  is  but  little 
known,  and  anywhere  now  probably  but  httle  read  ;  an 
ascetic  philosophy  does,  no  doubt,  prevade  much  of  his  dis- 
course ;  but  his  sermons  bear  the  marks  of  that  spiritual 
retreat  in  which  he  x^assed  so  many  months  of  every  year, 
that  life  of  meditation  without  w^hich  the  life  of  the 
preacher  becomes  forced,  wearied,  unnatural,  and  jaded, 
from  the  incessant  necessity  laid  upon  him.  In  his 
cloister,  too,  he  probably  plumed  his  wings  for  those  high 
and  sweet  meditative  flights  in  wliich  again  and  again  he 
indulges  ;  and  as  when  he  exclaims,  at  the  close  of  the 
strange  rapture  entitled  The  Soul's  Flight  from  Earth  to 
Heaven : 

Let  all  here  present  determine  to  decline  accepting  whatsoever 
the  earth  lias  to  offer  us ;  and  lifting  up  at  last  our  eyes  to  hea- 
ven, let  us  say,  Glorious  things,  yes  assuredly,  glorious  things 
are  written  of  thee,  thou  city  of  God !     (Ps.  Ixxxvii.  3.) 

But  how  am  I  grieved  that  I  should  have  been  so  slow  to 
leam  these  glorious  things  that  are  icritten  of  tliee  !  If,  however, 
I  once  so  basely  preferred  the  earth,  it  was  not  for  thy  demerit : 
it  only  arose  from  this,  that  I  knew  thee  not.  But  now  who 
shall  ever  prevail  to  shut  thee  out  from  my  heai*t  ?  Shall  trihu- 
latlon  ?  (Rom.  viii.  35.) — not  so ;  for  thou  shalt  change  it  for 
me  into  the  sweetest  contentments.  Shall  distress  ? — ^not  so ;  for 
thou  shalt  transform  it  for  me  into  the  most  perfect  peace.  Shall 
hunger  ? — not  so ;  for  thou  shalt  satisfy  it  for  me  with  a  most 
luscious  nectar.  Shall  nakedness  ? — ^not  so  ;  for  thou  shalt  cover 
it  for  me  with  Royal  apparel.  Shall  j^eril ! — not  so ;  for  thou 
shalt  turn  it  for  me  into  immovable  security.  Shall  persecution  ? 
— not  so  !  for  thou  shalt  recompense  it  to  me  with  a  glorious 
triumj)h.  Shall  the  sword? — No,  no  ;  not  even  the  sword  shall 
ever  cut  me  away  from  thee,  my  beautiful  Celestial  country !  not 
even  the  sword,  I  say  ;  for  thou  shalt  convert  its  steel  into  gold, 
its  point  into  rays  of  light,  its  circling  edge  into  a  crown  of  re- 
joicing ! 


Pulpit  Monographs. 

III. — St  Bernard  :   the  Mediaeval 
Preacher. 


'  T.  BEENARD  is  neither  by  name,  character,  nor 
influence,  unknown  to  our  readers.  His  name 
is  a  very  prominent  one  in  the  Church  history  of 
media3val  times — of  his  age  he  is  the  very  fore- 
most man.  He  also  may  be  designated  as  "the  soHtaiy 
monk  that  shook  the  world."  The  form  of  the  frail  man 
rises — amidst  the  encircling  crowd  of  emperors  and  kings, 
and  popes,  princes  and  priests,  fighting  barons  and  crusa- 
ders, the  arch-disputants  and  polemical  heretics  of  the  time 
— with  commanding  and  most  subduing  power  :  he  ruled 
aU,  he  influenced  all.  The  lone  hermit  touched  and  im- 
pressed himself  upon  all  the  affairs  of  his  time,  always  with 
a  powerful,  often  with  a  painful,  distinctness.  He  moves 
like  the  very  Ehjah  of  Europe  through  the  nations  of  those 
times ;  now  pitching  his  voice  to  the  shrill  fervor  or  the 
ensanguined  furiousness  of  a  mad  apostle,  as  when  he  be- 
came the  prophet  of  the  crusades  ;  now  sinking  it  to  the 
deep  and  tender  minor  tone  of  Christian  experiences,  when 
amidst  his  band  of  monks  he  breathes  out  his  contempla- 
tive sermons  on  The  Song  of  Songs,  which  is  Solomon's, 
From  beneath  the  cloistral  shades  of  Clairvaux  he  molded 

(162) 


Bernard, — Dijon,  163 

princes  to  his  will.  His  was  the  voice  which  determined  a 
distracted  people  and  church  in  their  election  of  a  pope. 
The  spiritual  vivacity  of  the  man,  in  an  age  when  nations 
received  the  law  fi'om  the  spiritual  kingdom,  was  surpass- 
ingly amazing.  That  lonely  man  might  have  said,  as  a  far 
different  chieftain  said, 

Of  old  things  all  arc  over  old  ; 
Of  good  tilings  none  are  good  enough. 
We  '11  show  that  we  can  help  to  frame 
A  world  of  other  stuff. 

I,  too,  will  have  my  kings,  that  take 
From  me  the  sign  of  life  and  death ; 
Kingdoms  shall  shift  about  lllce  clouds^ 
Obedient  to  my  breath. 

He  was  a  Burgundian.  His  father  was  a  feudal  baron, 
lord  of  the  Castle  of  Fontaines,  near  Dijon,  by  name  Tes- 
sehn.  When  he  became  the  successful  abbot  of  European 
fame,  and  cloisters  rose  in  England  in  connection  with  his 
order,  one  of  the  most  glorious  and  graceful  in  Europe 
sprang  to  his  honor,  as  well  as  to  the  honor  of  the  Lord  ; 
and  the  ruins  of  Fontaines  Abbey  perpetuate  the  memory 
of  the  birthplace  of  the  great  Middle  Age  monk  and  preacher. 
Tesselin  was,  in  his  way,  a  pious  fighting-man,  surnamed 
Soi^us,  which  meant  red-headed  ;  a  kind  of  Christian  Rufus, 
with  a  rude  sense  of  justice,  and  ill-conditioned  holiness  in 
him.  He  is  described  as  gentle,  although  brave  ;  modest, 
although  strong ;  and  pious,  although  rich.  And  so  also 
the  mother  of  our  saint  was  an  earnest,  loving,  devout  crea- 
ture, Ahce,  or  Alith,  by  name  ;  a  pale,  shadowy,  mournful 
mother,  the  latter  years  of  her  life  passed  in  austerities  and 
devotions  ;  charitable  after  the  fashion  of  the  times,  mother 
of  seven  children — six  sons  and  one  daughter — such  a  mo- 
ther of  such  a  son  would,  of  course,  not  be  without  monk- 
ish eulogists  ;  and  she  has  ever  had  plenty  who  have  covered 


1 64     Pulpit  Monographs, — St.  Bernard. 

her  name  and  tomb  with  all  legendary  and  traditional 
honor.  The  Abbe  of  Dijon  requested  her  body  for  the 
church  of  the  blessed  martyi',  Benignus.  There  she  was 
buried.  She  was  wont  to  appear,  we  are  told,  after  death 
to  her  son  Bernard,  advising  him  to  continue  in  his  good 
work  when  he  avowed  liimseK  to  monkery,  in  which  tradi- 
tion we  are  to  see  no  more  than  "the  robe  of  beauty  given 
to  the  tomb  unseen  in  the  sunlight,"  and  to  hear  only  "  the 
words  of  the  departed,"  which,*  as  Mr.  Morison,  St.  Ber- 
nard's latest  and  best  English  biographer,  says,  "  acquhe 
a  strange  reverberating  echo  from  the  vaults  wherem  they 
sleep." 

Bernard  was  the  child  of  these  two  good  people — his 
mind  and  heart,  not  less  than  his  body  ;  he  studied  at  Cha- 
tillon.  They  were  stirring  times,  the  times  of  his  early 
boyhood ;  they  were  the  days  of  the  first  crusade  ;  there 
was  a  blaze  of  wild  enthusiasm  for  the  hberation  of  the 
Holy  Land  and  sepulchre  from  the  hands  of  the  Infidels  ; 
this  wild  idea  was  "the  way  of  God,"  and  all  men  were 
embarking  upon  the  great  pilgrimage  of  nations.  Lands 
were  sold  for  the  love  of  Christ ;  barons  and  serfs  all  felt 
the  animation  of  a  common  tendency  and  hope.  "  Clirist," 
says  one  old  writer,  "  had  thundered  through  the  minds  of 
all."  Some  of  the  poor  harnessed  then'  oxen  to  then-  farm- 
carts,  and  placed  therein  their  goods  and  their  little  ones, 
and  started  in  all  simplicity  for  the  Holy  City.  Along  the 
bad  roads  and  the  long  journey,  even  from  province  to 
province,  they  went,  slowly  moving  and  creaking  over 
marsh  and  moor.  As  town  or  castle  rose  in  sight,  the  chil- 
dren would  ask,  "Is  that  the  Jerusalem  we  are  going  to  ?" 
One  of  the  chief  leaders  was  the  Duke  of  BurgTindy.  Ho 
never  returned  ahve  ;  and  he  desired  that  his  remains  might 
rest  among  the  poor  monks  of  the  wretched  Abbey  of 
Citeaux,  rather  than  in  any  of  the  more  sumptuous  and 
wealthy  abbeys  of  his  dominions.     Citeaux  was  near  to  the 


Two  Instincts  rule  the  World,  165 

hearth  of  Fontaines,  and  the  duke  was  the  suzeram  of  Tes- 
sehn.  The  good  Ahth  would  print  the  lesson  of  this  event 
upon  the  mind  of  the  little  Bernard,  then  nine  years  old — ■ 
the  great  crusader  going  forth  with  his  warriors  in  full  pan- 
oply, and  retiu'ning  cofiined  and  still  to  the  cemetery  at 
Citeaux. 

It  was  a  strange  age.  Two  instincts  ruled  the  world — 
an  instinct  for  fighting  and  an  instinct  for  praying.  Men 
passed  from  one  action  to  the  other  with  ease  and  happi- 
ness ;  nay,  at  last  did  not  j)ass  from  one  to  the  other,  but 
fought  and  prayed  in  the  same  breath.  Thus  rose  the 
Society  of  the  Templars  ;  hence  the  stream  of  the  mad 
crusaders  ;  for  ordinary  fighters,  the  usual  occupation  was 
besieging  a  castle  ;  everybody  was  slaying  or  being  slain. 
A  very  fierce  world ;  and  thoughtful  and  refined  natures 
had  very  little  hesitation  in  quitting  it.  Dukes  and  princes, 
and  peasants  and  paupers,  aU  sought  the  haven  in  which 
they  desired  to  say  their  prayers,  and  lie  down  for  the  long 
night  in  peace. 

And  such  a  haven  was  then  opened,  and  inviting  to  all.  Be- 
tween the  clash  of  arms  and  the  din  of  wars,  comes  a  silvery 
peal  of  convent  bells.  In  the  deep,  hushed  winter's  night,  the 
chorus  song  of  matins  is  heard  in  measured  cadence,  and  the  last 
chaunt  of  compline  goes  fortli  as  the  summer  sun  approaches 
the  horizon.  There,  in  the  thick  v/oods,  sleeps  the  monastery, 
from  which  these  voices  and  bell-tones  are  heard.  Calm  and 
holy  it  looks,  casting  long  rays  of  light  into  the  dark  air,  as  the 
"  'lated  traveller  "  hastens  to  its  welcome  shelter.  For  a  young 
ardent  spirit,  entering  the  world,  the  choice  practically  was  be- 
tween a  fife  of  strife,  violence,  wickedness,  of  ignoble  or  fero- 
cious joys  and  sorrow ;  or  of  sober,  self-denying  labor  and  soli- 
tude, with  a  solemn  strain  in  the  heart,  lightening  and  prosper- 
ing the  work  of  the  hands.* 

*  The  Life  and  Times  of  St.  Bernard^  Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  A.  d. 
1091-1153.  By  James  Cottis  Morison,  M.A.,  Lincoln  College,  Ox- 
ford. 


1 66      Pidpit  MonoLjraplis, — St  Bernard. 

At  first  Bernard  heard,  of  course,  the  voices  of  the 
trumpets  and  the  clang  and  clash  of  arms,  but  he  was  too 
frail  for  a  knight.  Then,  in  the  time  of  the  extraordinary 
hterary  awakenment  of  the  twelfth  century,  philosophy  hfted 
up  her  voice  and  called  him.  The  great  doctor  of  Paris, 
Wilham  of  Champeaux,  is  celebrated  throughout  Europe  ; 
and  still  more  remarkable,  the  young  audacious  knight-er- 
rant of  heresy.  Master  Peter  Abelard,  was  fascinating 
crowds  of  thousands,  over  mountains  and  seas,  to  enjoy  the 
privilege  of  hearing  him  lecture.  And  the  spell  of  intellect 
almost  called  Bernard  aside  from  the  life  of  hohness  and 
prayer,  to  which  his  mother's  example  and  conversation  had 
incited  him.  Then  m  a  dubious  but  all  distracted  mood  he 
rode  on  his  way  through  the  tangled  forest  and  the  bare 
bleak  moor,  and  presently  he  came  to  a  churcli ;  the  clouds 
of  doubt  rolled  away  before  the  rising  sun  of  faith,  and 
upon  his  knees,  in  that  wayside  church,  and  in  a  torrent  of 
tears,  he  lifted  up  his  hands  to  heaven,  and  poured  forth 
his  heai-t  like  water  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  That  was 
the  hour  of  his  conversion  ;  from  that  hour  his  determina- 
tion to  enter  the  monastic  life  never  faltered. 

Bnt  Bernard  would  not  enter  the  monastery  alone.  The 
instinct  was  strong  upon  him  which  leads  us  to  desire  the 
conversion  of  other  souls  immediately  after  the  conversion 
of  our  own  ;  and  he  at  once  displayed  that  commanding 
personal  ascendancy,  that  overpowering  influence  of  spirit, 
which  hardly  met  with  a  defeat  during  his  long  life.  His 
uncle,  his  brothers,  Guido  and  Gerard,  both  knights,  yielded 
very  shortly  to  the  spell  of  his  power.  Nay,  the  effect  of 
his  preaching  was  such,  that  mothers  hid  their  sons,  and 
wives  their  husbands,  and  companions  their  friends,  lest 
they  should  be  led  captive  by  the  persuasive  eloquence  of 
the  youthful  enthusiast.  At  last  he  had  gathered  round  him 
thirty  adherents  ;  with  them  he  retired  into  seclusion  at 
Chattnion,  where  for  the  space  of  six  months  they  all  de- 


Monastic  Reformer ,  1 67 

voted  themselves  by  preparation  for  the  great  change  they 
were  to  undergo.  In  the  year  1113,  Bernard,  being  then 
twenty-two  years  old,  knocked  at  the  gate,  and  disappeared 
within  the  walls  of  Citeaux.  It  was  a  severe  house  ;  of  all 
religious  houses  one  of  the  most  severe.  It  was  under  the 
rule  of  Stephen  Harding,  an  Enghshman,  from  Sherborne  in 
Dorsetshire.  Within  its  walls  he  was  carrying  on  a  system 
of  monastic  reform,  keeping  St.  Benedict's  rule  most 
literally,  not  conventionally  and  with  large  allowances,  as 
was  usual  in  the  strictest  houses.  No  ; — ^but  eating  only  one 
meal  a  day  ;  and  they  had  risen  twelve  hours  from  their 
couches,  sung  psalms,  and  worked  in  the  fields,  before  they 
got  even  that ;  never  tasting  fish,  meat,  grease,  or  eggs, 
and  milk  only  rarely  ;  their  dress  consisting  only  of  tliree 
garments,  aU  of  the  coarsest  wool  ;  their  church,  austere  in 
its  simj^Hcity.  There  was  Httle  sympathy  with  this  pleasant 
monastic  life,  and  a  fearful  epidemic  raging  through  the 
cloisters  seemed  likely  to  bring  the  dream  of  monastic  re- 
form to  a  close,  when  Bernard  and  his  brethren  sought  ad- 
mittance beneath  its  cheerless  shades. 

But  these  austerities,  .and  others  we  must  not  stay  to  par- 
ticularize, were  too  few  for  Bernard,  and  he  determined  to 
do  his  best,  not  only  to  subdue  the  desires  of  the  flesh 
which  arise  through  the  senses,  but  even  those  senses  them- 
selves. He  excluded  himseK  from  all  communication  with 
the  outer  world  ;  time  given  to  sleep  he  regarded  as  lost ; 
when  importunate  friends  came  to  converse  with  him  he 
heard  nothing,  he  stopped  his  ears  with  little  wads  of  flax, 
and  buried  his  head  deep  in  the  cowl ;  for  food  he  lost  all 
desire,  and  the  little  he  took  seemed  taken  rather  to  defer 
death  than  to  sustain  life  ;  he  betook  himself  also  to  hard 
manual  labor — digging,  hewing  wood,  and  carrying  it  on  his 
shoulders.  One  luxury  for  a  time  remained,  the  desire  for  it 
unextinguished  as  yet,  but  to  be  also  banished  from  the  soul 
by-and-by — ^it  was  the  love  of   nature.     He  lived  in  this 


//.  '^ 


/('TTIflVSX 


1 68        Pulpit  Monograplis :  Bernard, 

love  ;  to  him,  in  his  first  monastic  clays,  the  love  of  God 
and  the  love  of  natui^e  were  all  ;  from  nature  to  the  Bible, 
from  the  Bible  to  nature  ;  the  beeches  and  the  oaks,  tlie 
woods  and  the  fields,  and  the  Scriptures — no  word  of 
thought  came  between  him  and  that  glorious  phantas- 
magoria ;  the  result  of  a  word  of  God,  and  at  a  word  of 
God,  at  last,  to  vanish  away — only  a  procession  of  burning 
thoughts  swept  thi'ough  the  soul,  raptures  of  ecstatic  love, 
m  the  gloomy  forest,  and  before  the  sailmg  clouds,  and  the 
pomp  of  setting  suns.  No  world  of  cause  and  effects,  and 
laws  obscured  or  aided  his  vision.  He  says  to  a  friend  and 
pupil; 

"  Trust  to  one  who  has  had  experience.  You  will  find  some- 
thing far  greater  in  the  woods  than  you  will  in  books.  Stones 
and  trees  will  teach  you  that  which  you  will  never  learn  from 
masters.  Think  you  not  you  can  suck  honey  from  the  rock,  and 
oil  from  the  flinty  rock  ?  Do  not  the  mountains  drop  sweetness ; 
the  hills  run  with  milk  and  honey,  and  the  valleys  stand  thick 
with  corn  ?" 

We  have  spoken  of  the  surprise  created  by  the  selection 
of  Citeaux  as  the'  sohtude  to  which*  Bernard  consigned  him- 
self with  his  thn-ty  companions.  Great,  however,  must- 
have  been  the  joy  created  by  their  arrival  in  that  decaying 
monastery.  It  was  the  turning-point  in  its  history.  Very 
soon  it  became  necessary  to  leave  the  spot  of  his  selection  ; 
and,  selected  by  the  Abbot  of  Citeaux,  he  became  himself, 
although  only  just  turned  four-and-twenty,  the  head  of  a 
new  community.  Stephen  Harding  placed  a  cross  in  Ber- 
nard's hands,  gave  him  twelve  monks,  and  sent  the  young 
Abbot  forth  to  choose  some  spot  for  a  new  religious  house 
in  the  wilderness.  He  and  his  companions  struck  away 
northward ;  passed  up  by  the  source  of  the  Seine,  by 
Chatillon,  a  place  of  old  school-day  associations  till  he 
reached  a   place   called   Fertc,    equally  distant  between 


In  the  Valley  of  Wormwood.  169 

Troyes  and  Chaumont,  situated  on  the  river  Aube.  Four 
miles  beyond  La  Ferte,  they  came  to  a  deep  valley  ;  thick, 
umbrageous  forests  giving  a  character  of  gloom  and  wildness. 
It  was  called  the  Valley  of  "Wormwood  ;  a  name,  surely,  be- 
fitting the  austerities  we  have  associated  with  our  pilgrims. 
Here  he  laid  the  foundation  of  that  building,  whose  name 
is  immortal  in  the  history  of  the  Church  and  of  Europe, 
the  famous  Abbey  of  Clairvaux.  It  was  a  singularly  un- 
pretentious building,  utterly  excluding  from  the  mind  all 
romantic  associations  with  monastic  piles  —  a  building 
covered  by  a  single  roof,  under  which  chapel,  dormitory, 
and  refectory  were  all  included  ;  miserable  windows  artisti- 
cally contrived  rather  to  exclude  than  to  convey  the  light. 
The  monks'  beds  are  described  as  a  kind  of  bin  of  wooden 
planks,  long  and  wide  enough  for  a  man  to  lie  down  in  ;  a 
small  space  hewn  out  with  an  axe  allowed  room  for  the 
sleeper  to  get  in  or  out,  and  the  inside  pleasantly  strewn 
with  chaff  or  dried  leaves  ;  these  below,  and  the  woodwork 
above  are  the  mattress  and  bed-clothes,  which  furnish  to 
om-  imagination  an  idea  of  the  comforts  of  the  home.  In 
truth,  all  about  the  establishment  marked  its  extreme 
poverty.  They  were  near  to  September  when  the  rude 
building  was  completed.  Autumn  and  winter  were  ap- 
proaching. They  had  no  stores  laid  by.  Their  food  during 
the  summer  had  been  a  compound  of  leaves  and  coarse 
grain  ;  their  food  during  the  winter  was  to  be  beech-nuts 
and  roots.  The  austerities  of  Citeaux,  before  Bernard 
made  his  appearance  had  been  severe  ;  but  those  austerities, 
which  to  him  were  the  necessary  conditions  of  his  spiritual 
life,  began  to  be  terrible  to  his  twelve  monks.  Very  shortly 
there  seem  to  have  been  signs  of  mutiny.  Deaf  to  their 
Abbot's  entreaties,  they  talked  of  leaving  the  valley  of  bit- 
terness and  returning  to  Citeaux.  At  this  period  monkish 
historians  tax  the  faith  of  readers  ^vith  the  traditions  of 
miracles,  now  commencing  to  perform  a  part  in  tjie  history 
8 


1 70        Pulpit  Monographs :  Bernard. 

of  Bernard,  and  henceforth  never  wanting  to  that  history. 
"  Wait  and  ye  shall  see,  O  ye  of  little  faith,"  said  the 
Abbot ;  and  it  seems  they  did  see  ;  if  not  miracles,  marvels 
made  their  appearance.  But  when  are  marvels  wanting  in 
the  Hfe  of  faith?  He  compelled  the  obedience,  and, 
eventually,  the  perfectly  docile  trust  of  his  more  faithless 
brethren,  and  finally  presented  himseK  before  his  diocesan 
for  consecration  over  the,  as  yet,  quite  incipient  abbacy.  A 
precious  appearance  he  and  his  are  described  as  presenting 
in  the  palace  of  the  renowned  dialectician,  William  of 
Champeaux.  Before  the  experienced  master  of  the  Paris 
schools  came  the  threadbare  care-worn  youth,  with  attenu- 
ated body  and  emaciated  countenance.  That  was  a  day  in 
which  splendor  was  not  wanting  to  the  bishop's  palace ; 
and  we  can  easily  figure  the  mirth  of  the  loungers  and 
idlers  as  the  grotesque  band  made  it«  appearance. 

But  the  old  master  soon  detected  the  soul  in  the  ragged 
body,  and  a  life-long  friendship  was  formed  between  the 
two  from  that  hour,  which,  in  the  life  of  Bernard,  presents 
us  with  many  pleasant  ghmpses  and  particulars.  And 
now  Bernard  fell  HI,  which  also  is  not  surprising.  WiUiam 
of  Champeaux,  when  he  found  his  new  friend  resolute 
against  the  relaxation  of  the  painful  austerities  of  his  life, 
started  for  Citeaux,  bishop  as  he  was,  that  from  Stephen 
Harding,  the  Abbot,  he  might  receive  the  power  to  compel 
the  remittance  of  those  toils  and  pains  beneath  which  the 
enfeebled  constitution  was  failing  fast.  He  received  a  com- 
mission to  manage  Bernard  for  twelve  months  himself. 
Hastening  back  to  Clairvaux,  he  foimd  its  Abbot  now  obe- 
dient and  yielding.  He  caused  a  small  cottage  to  be  built 
outside  the  monastery  walls,  and  commanded  that  his  diet 
should  no  longer  be  regulated  by  monastic  rule.  All  this 
was  irksome  enough  to  the  spirit  of  Bernard  ;  but  it  is 
easy  to  see,  that  probably  but  for  this  timely  interference, 
that  magic  influence,  which  gave  to  Clairvaux  a  far  more 


The  Attractions  of  the  Cloister.  \  j  i 

than  European  fame,  and  moved  popes,  emperors,  and 
princes  at  its  touch,  had  never  been  known.  He,  on  his 
part,  seems  to  have  received  his  lease  of  hfe  and  comfort 
very  ungraciously  ;  and,  when  William  of  St.  Thierry 
visited  him  in  his  hut,  and  asked  him  how  he  did,  a  satire, 
not  very  common  with  him  in  those  days,  broke  forth,  as 
he  repHed,  "Excellent  well.  I,  who  have  hitherto  ruled 
over  rational  beings,  by  a  great  judgment  of  God,  am 
given  over  to  obey  an  irrational  beast."  Clairvaux,  mean- 
time, began  to  rear  its  loftier  buildings.  William  of  St. 
Thierry  breaks  forth  into  rapturous  exclamations  at  once 
over  the  the  beauty  of  the  valley,  and  the  consecrated  la- 
bors which  were  there  discovering  themselves ;  a  still 
silent  solitude,  yet  the  valley  soon  became  full  of  men. 
The  sounds  of  labor,  the  chants  of  the  brethren,  and  choral 
services  began  now  to  reheve  the  solitudes  of  the  forests 
and  the  gorges.  We  have  also  the  story  of  Peter  de  Koya, 
who  turned  aside  into  the  valley  from  a  long  habituation,  as 
he  tells  us,  "with  festive  banquets  and  silver  salvers." 
"  To  him  it  seemed,"  as  he  says,  "  that  he  had  found  the 
building  whose  foundation  is  in  the  holy  mountains — the 
gates  loved  of  the  Lord  more  than  the  dwellings  of  Jacob. 
In  Clairvaux,"  says  he,  "  they  have  found  Jacob's  ladder, 
wdth  angels  upon  it,  some  descending,  who  so  provide  for 
their  bodies,  that  they  faint  not  on  the  way  :  and  others 
ascending,  who  so  nile  their  souls,  that  their  bodies  here- 
after may  be  glorified  with  them."  He  continues:  "To 
judge  from  their  outward  appearance,  their  tools,  their  dis- 
ordered clothes,  they  appear  a  race  of  fools,  without  speech 
or  sense  ;  but  a  true  thought  in  my  mind  tells  me  that 
their  Hfe  is  hid  with  Christ  in  the  heavens.  Many  of  them, 
I  hear,  are  bishops  and  earls,  and  men  illustrious  through 
ilieir  birth  and  knowledge.  I  see  Godfrey  of  Peronne, 
Eaynald  of  Picardy,  William  of  St.  Omer,  Walter  of  Lisle  ; 
aU  of  whom  I  knew  formerly  in  the  old  man,  whereof  I  see 


1^2        Pulpit  Mo7iograpJis :  BevTiard^ 

now  no  trace,  by  God's  favor."  All  this  ended  in  his  going 
to  Clairvaux. 

From  his  retirement  of  sickness  Bernard  came  forth,  we 
think,  healthier  in  mind  as  well  as  in  body.  His  nature 
seems  to  have  righted  itself,  as  far  as  it  ever  righted  itseK 
in  its  earthly  tabernacle  ;  and,  in  the  course  of  a  year  or 
two,  he  commenced  that  course  of  marvellous  hterary  la- 
bors, infinite  correspondences,  sermons,  extending  govern- 
ments, and  travels,  which  alternate  his  name  in  our  minds, 
as  the  man  of  action  not  less  than  the  man  of  contempla- 
tion. Not  that  he  ever  became  tolerant  or  tender  to  any 
kinds  of  self-indulgence  ;  and  his  description  of  a  woK  of 
a  prior,  whose  tender  regards  to  the  necessities  of  human 
flesh  had  succeeded  in  fascinating  one  of  his  monks  from 
Clairvaux  to  Cluny,  is  sufficiently  humorous  :  hear  him : 
"  Wine  and  the  like,  soup  and  fat  things,  these  are  for  the 
body,  not  for  the  mind  ;  not  for  the  soul,  but  the  flesh  is 
nourished  by  ragouts.  Many  brethren  in  Egypt  serve  God 
a  long  time  without  eating  fish,  pepper,  ginger,  sage,  and 
cummin  ;  they,  indeed,  delight  the  palate  ;  but,  think  you, 
youth  can  be  passed  in  safety  surrounded  by  them  T  He 
bids  those  who  fear  his  fasts,  and  vigils,  and  manual  labors, 
to  dwell  on  the  thought  of  eternal  flames.  "  The  thought 
of  outer  darkness  will  banish  all  fear  of  solitude.  If  you 
reflect,  that  account  is  to  be  kept  of  every  idle  word,  silence 
will  stiike  you  as  less  appalHng  ;  and  eternal  weeping  and 
gnashing  of  teeth  will  make  a  feather-bed  and  mattress 
equally  indifferent.  Arise,  then,  soldier  of  Christ."  But 
the  soldier  did  not  arise  :  the  morning  slumbers,  and  the 
ginger,  and  the  pepper  were  too  much  for  the  beech-nuts 
of  Clairvaux. 

At  this  period  of  the  history  of  Bernard  we  might  dwell 
a  httle  time,  did  space  permit,  upon  the  miracles  which 
form  a  j)ortion  of  the  life  of  St.  Bernard  ;  but  we  cannot 
dwell.     It  may  be  sufficient  to  remark  that  it  was  an  age 


In  the  Age  of  Miracles.  173 

in  which  material  natui'e  was  supposed  to  be  at  the  com- 
mand of  moral  goodness. — Must  not  the  earthly  give  way 
to  the  heavenly?  Must  not  Christ  be  the  conqueror  of 
Satan?  One  writer  tells  us  how  he  saw  a  knight  offer 
thanks  to  Bernard  for  having  cured  him  with  a  piece  of 
consecrated  bread.  There  are  plenty  of  stories  of  the  dis- 
eases which  fled  at  the  command  or  the  blessing  of  Ber- 
nard. When  he  came  to  the  dedication  of  the  church  of 
Foigny,  it  happened  that  an  incredible  number  of  flies 
filled  the  place.  "  I  excommunicate  them/'  said  the  saint. 
Next  morning  they  were  all  found  dead,  they  covered  the 
pavement,  they  were  shovelled  out  with  spades,  the  church 
was  rid  of  them  ;  the  cursing  of  the  Foigny  flies  passed 
into  a  proverb.  Shall  we  laugh  at  these  things  ?  Shall 
we  laugh  at  the  story  that,  when  his  attendants  were  un- 
able to  catch  his  horse,  Bernard  said  "  Let  us  pray  ;"  and, 
kneeling  down,  they  were  not  through  the  Lord's  prayer 
when  the  horse  returned  and  stood  before  Bernard  ?  We 
give  these  stories  in  their  crudity.  At  any  rate,  they  are 
significant  enough,  and  show  the  estimation  in  which  Ber- 
nard was  held  by  his  cotemporaries.  And  we  must  remem- 
ber, in  looking  at  the  matter,  that  our  talk  about  miracles 
would  have  availed  nothing  with  Bernard.  "  Laws  of  Na- 
ture !"  we  think  we  hear  him  exclaim  ;  "  what  do  I  know 
of  the  laws  of  nature  ?  Miracle  is  the  law  of  God."  Mira- 
cles, and  ajDparitions,  and  Divine  and  demoniac  interfer- 
ences with  human  affaii's !  a  man  of  the  twelfth  century — 
and  especially  such  a  man  as  Bernard — would  have  as  soon 
parted  with  his  existence  as  he  would  have  parted  with  his 
belief  in  these.  Moreover,  there  was  evidently  that  in  the 
psychological  character  of  Bernard  which  would  easily 
hang  round  him  the  apparition  of  miracles  to  ordinary 
miads  :  his  whole  life  was  a  kind  of  miracle,  resolvable  by 
us  in  a  measure  ;  and,  if  our  readers  are  disposed  still  to 
smile,  we  must  remind  them  that  miracles  belong  to  that 


174        Pulpit  Monographs :  Bernard^ 

time  as  much  as  the  feudal  castle,  vast  monastic  piles,  and' 
the  baron's  chain  mail. 

At  the  age  of  thirty-four  Bernard  travelled  to  fortify  the 
population  of  his  young  community. 

He  visited  Paris, "  a  httle,  thronged,  dirty,  ill-paved  city  : " 
one  smiles  at  the  unrecognisable  description.  The  schools 
of  Paris  were  the  marvel  of  Europe.  Bernard  was  re- 
quested to  enter  them  and  lecture  in  them.  He  did  not 
enter  the  schools,  but  he  was  glad  enough  to  seize  the  op- 
portunity for  dilating  on  the  true  philosophy, — contempt 
for  the  world  and  voluntary  poverty  for  Christ's  sake.  His 
visit,  while  not  entirely  unsuccessful,  does  not  seem  to  have 
greatly  strengthened  Clairvaux.  He  gladly  returned  to  his 
peaceful  seclusion,  from  which,  indeed,  he  was  never  a  will- 
ing wanderer  ;  and  there  are  many  passages  of  his  life 
which  give  us  glimpses  of  serene  and  thoughtful  days, 
amidst  the  turmoil  and  barbarism  of  that  wild,  ungovern- 
able time.  In  his  way,  we  are  pleased  also  to  see,  that  St. 
Bernard  set  himseK  heartily  to  the  reformation  of  burgla- 
rious barons,  bishops  who  thought  too  much  of  their  tem- 
poralities, and  abbots  who  gave  more  attention  to  their 
revenues  than  to  souls.  He  set  himself  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  Church,  to  do  battle  with  the  exuberant  animal- 
ism of  the  age — to  tame  it,  and  drill  it — and  it  is  truly 
amusing,  in  this  connection,  to  notice  how,  again  and  again, 
the  question  of  cookery  forces  itself  upon  our  saint's  at- 
tention. Some  passages,  in  which  he  condemns  the  luxury 
of  the  Cluniacs,  are  scarcely  less  curious  than  they  are  hu- 
morous. A  Cluniac  dinner  must  have  been  a  tolerably  in- 
viting repast,  "  Who,"  says  our  saint,  "  could  say,  to  speak 
of  nothing  else,  in  how  many  forms  eggs  are  cooked  and 
worked  up  ?  with  what  care  they  are  turned  in  and  out, 
made  hard  or  soft,  or  chopped  fine  ;  now  fried,  now  roasted, 
now  stuffed ;  now  they  are  served  mixed  with  other  things, 
now  by  themselves  ;  even  the  external  appearance  of  the 


His  Invgeacliment  of  tlie  Monies,       17^ 

dishes  is  such  that  the  eye,  as  well  as  the  taste,  is  charmed ; 
and  when  even  the  stomach  complakis  that  it  is  full,  curios- 
ity is  still  ahve.  So  also,'*  he  continues,  "  what  shall  I  say 
about  water-drinking,  when  even  wine  and  water  are  de- 
spised? We  all  of  us,  it  appears,  directly  we  become 
monks  are  afflicted  with  weak  stomachs,  and  the  important 
advice  of  the  apostle  to  use  wine,  we,  iq  a  praiseworthy 
manner,  endeavor  to  follow,  but  for  some  unexplained  rea- 
son, the  condition  of  a  little  is  usually  omitted."  In  the 
same  manner  he  denounces  the  monkish  lust  of  dress. 
"You  say  religion  is  in  the  heart ;  true,  but  when  you  are 
about  to  buy  a  cowl  you  rush  over  to  the  towns,  visit  the 
markets,  examine  the  fairs,  dive  iato  the  houses  of  the  mer- 
chants, turn  over  all  their  goods,  undo  their  bundlee  of 
cloth,  feel  it  with  your  fingers,  hold  it  to  your  eyes  or  to  the 
rays  of  the  sun,  and  if  anything  coarse  or  faded  appears  you 
reject  it ;  but  if  you  are  pleased  v^ith  any  object  of  unusual 
beauty  or  brightness,  you  buy  it,  whatever  the  price.  Does 
this  come  from  your  heart  or  your  simphcity  ?  I  wonder 
that  our  abbots  allow  these  things,  unless  it  arises  from  the 
fact,  that  no  one  is  apt  to  blame  any  error  with  confidence, 
if  he  cannot  trust  to  his  own  freedom  from  the  same." 
Nor  these  vices  alone.  He  speaks  of  others  whose  vice 
was  a  mock  humility  :  "  Again,  vdth  our  bellies  full  of 
beans,  and  our  minds  of  pride,  we  condemn  those  who  are 
full  of  meat ;  as  if  it  were  not  better  to  eat  a  little  fat  on 
occasion,  than  to  be  gorged,  even  to  belching,  with  windy 
vegetables."  He  looked  with  httle  more  favor  upon  the 
rich  architecture,  now  beginning  to  adorn  the  churches  of 
Europe,  than  the  sumptuary  condition  of  the  priests. 
"  The  church's  walls  are  resplendent,"  exclaims  he,  "  but 
the  poor  are  not  there." 

"  In  the  churches  are  suspended,  not  coh^oykb^  but  wheels  stud- 
ded with  gems,  and  surrounded  by  lights,  which  are  scarcely 
brighter  than  the  precious  stones  which  are  near  them.    Instead 


176         Pulpit  Moiiograjplis  :  Bernard, 

of  candlesticks,  we  behold  great  trees  of  brass,  fashioned  with 
wonderful  skill,  and  glittering  as  much  through  their  jewels  as 
through  their  own  lights.  What  do  you  suppose  is  the  object 
of  all  this  ?  The  repentance  of  the  contrite,  or  the  admiration 
of  the  gazers  ?  O  vanity  of  vanities !  but  not  more  vain  than 
foolish.  The  church's  walls  are  resplendent,  but  the  poor  are 
not  there.  .  .  .  The  curious  find  wherewith  to  amuse  them- 
selves— the  wretched  find  no  stay  for  them  in  their  misery. 
Why,  at  least,  do  we  not  reverence  the  images  of  the  saints, 
with  which  the  very  pavement  we  walk  on  is  covered  ?  Often 
an  angel's  mouth  is  spit  into,  and  the  face  of  some  saint  trodden 
on  by  the  passers-by.  .  .  .  But  if  we  cannot  do  without  the 
images,  why  can  we  not  spare  the  brilliant  colors  ?  What  has 
all  this  to  do  with  monks,  with  j^rofessors  of  poverty,  with  men 
of  spiritual  minds  ? 

"  Again,  in  the  cloisters,  what  is  the  meaning  of  those  ridicu- 
lous monsters,  of  that  deformed  beauty,  that  beautiful  deformity, 
before  the  very  eyes  of  the  brethren  when  reading  ?  What  are 
disgusting  monkeys  there  for,  or  ferocious  lions,  or  horrible  cen- 
taurs, or  spotted  tigers,  or  fighting  soldiers,  or  huntsmen  sound- 
ing the  bugle  ?  You  may  see  there  one  head  with  many  bodies, 
or  one  body  with  numerous  heads.  Here  is  a  quadruped  with  a 
serpent's  tail ;  there  is  a  fish  with  a  beast's  head ;  there  a  crea- 
ture, in  front  a  horse,  behind  a  goat ;  another  has  horns  at  one 
end,  and  a  horse's  tail  at  the  other.  In  fact,  such  an  endless 
variety  of  forms  appear  everywhere,  that  it  is  more  pleasant  to 
read  in  the  stonework  than  in  books,  and  to  spend  the  day  in 
admiring  these  oddities  than  in  meditating  on  the  law  of  God. 
Good  God  !  if  we  are  not  ashamed  of  these  absurdities,  why  do 
"we  not  grieve  at  the  cost  of  them  ? " 

Thus,  finally,  perhaps,  Bernard  would  not  be  far  from  a 
disposition  to  pronounce  the  objurgation  of  Thomas  Car- 
lyle,  "  Let  the  devil  fly  away  with  fine  arts."  ".I  never  met 
with  a  man,"  says  Kuskin,  "  whose  mind  was  fully  set  upon 
the  world  to  come,  perfect  and  right  before  God,  who  cared 
about  art  at  all."  We  are  disposed  to  commend  the  con- 
siderations of  these  sundry  texts  from  aU  these  w^orthies  to 


Secular  and  Spiritual  KniglitJiood.     1 77 

those  who  find  a  strong  disposition  to  sneer  at  Puritanic 
tabernacles  and  conventicles,  on  one  hand ;  or  who  are  dis- 
posed to  estimate  the  worth  of  our  modem  Nonconformity 
by  its  aesthetic  developments,  on  the  other. 

As  Bernard  verged  towards  his  fortieth  year,  the  period 
of  his  comparative  retirement  and  rest  drew  to  a  close. 
He  attended  the  Council  of  Troyes — that  celebrated  coun- 
cil, famous  for  the  part  it  took  in  founding  the  order  of  the 
Knights  Templars.  In  this  order  those  two  grand  instincts 
of  mediaeval  times  to  which  we  have  aheady  referred — the 
fighting  instuict  and  the  praying  instinct — ^became  distiuctly 
one.  Bernard's  exhortation  to  the  Knights  of  the  Temple  • 
is  very  characteristic  of  the  times  and  of  himself,  although 
issued  some  three  or  four  years  later.  He  contrasts  the 
secular  with  the  monastic  warfare  in  the  following  extraor- 
dinary words,  curiously  remarkable  for  their  saintly  blood- 
thirstiness. 

"You  always  run  a  risk,  you  worldly  soldier,  of  either  killing 
your  adversary's  body,  and  your  own  soul  in  consequence,  or  of 
being  killed  yourself  both  body  and  soul.  If,  while  wishing  to 
kill  another  you  are  killed  yourself,  you  die  a  homicide.  If  you 
vanquish  and  kill  your  enemy,  you  live  a  homicide.  But  what  ' 
an  astounding  error,  what  madness  is  it,  O,  Knights,  to  fight  at 
such  cost  and  trouble  for  no  wages  except  those  of  death  or  sin  ! 
You  deck  out  your  horses  with  silken  trappings;  you  wear 
flaunting  cloaks  over  your  steel  breastplates ;  you  paint  your 
shields,  your  spears,  and  your  saddles ;  your  spurs  and  bridles 
shine  with  gold,  and  silver,  and  gems ;  and  in  this  gay  pomp, 
with  an  amazing  and  incredible  madness,  you  rush  upon  death. 
Have  you  not  found  from  experience  that  these  things  are  es- 
pecially needed  by  a  soldier,  viz.,  that  he  be  bold  yet  vigilant  as 
regards  his  own  safety,  quick  in  his  movements,  and  prompt  to 
strike  ?  You,  on  the  contrary,  cultivate  long  hair,  which  gets 
in  your  eyes  ;  your  feet  are  entangled  in  the  folds  of  your  flow- 
ing robes ;  your  delicate  hands  are  buried  in  your  ample  and 
spreading  sleeves.  In  addition  to  all  this,  your  reasons  for  fight- 
8* 


1 78         Pulpit  Monographs :  Bernard. 

ing  are  light  and  frivolous,  viz.,  the  impulses  of  an  irrational 
anger,  or  a  desire  of  vain  glory,  or  the  wish  to  obtain  some 
earthly  possession.  Certainly,  for  such  causes  as  these  it  is  not 
safe  either  to  slay  or  to  be  slain. 

"  But  Christ's  soldiers  can  fight  in  safety  the  battles  of  their 
Lord ;  fearing  no  sin  from  killing  an  enemy  ;  dreading  no  dan- 
ger from  their  own  death.  Seeing  that  for  Christ's  sake  death 
must  be  sufi'ered  or  inflicted,  it  brings  with  it  no  sin,  but  rather 
earns  much  glory.  In  the  one  case  Christ  is  benefited,  in  the 
other  Christ  is  gained.  Christ,  who  willingly  accepts  an  enemy's 
death  for  revenge,  and  more  willingly  still  grants  himself  to  the 
soldier  for  consolation.  Christ's  soldier  can  securely  kill — can 
more  securely  die :  when  he  dies,  it  profits  him ;  when  he  slays, 
it  profits  Christ.  Not  without  just  cause  is  he  girded  with  a 
sword.  When  he  kills  a  malefactor,  he  is  not  a  slayer  of  men, 
but  a  slayer  of  evil,  and  plainly  an  avenger  of  Christ  against 
those  who  do  amiss.  But,  when  he  is  killed,  he  has  not  per- 
ished, he  has  reached  his  goal.  The  Christian  exults  in  the 
death  of  a  pagan  because  Christ  is  glorified.  In  the  death  of 
the  Christian  the  King's  bountifulness  is  shown  when  the  soldier 
is  led  forth  to  his  reward.  The  just  will  rejoice  over  the  first 
when  he  sees  the  punishment  of  the  wicked.  Of  the  latter  men 
will  say,  *  Verily  there  is  a  reward  for  the  righteous^  doubtless  there 
is  a  God  that  judgeth  the  earth.^  " 

The  following  remarkable  words,  pervaded  surely  by  a 
droU  grim  humor,  express  his  feelings  at  the  departure  of 
the  troops  of  crusaders  for  the  Holy  Land : 

"  But  the  most  joyful  and  salutary  result  to  be  perceived  is, 
that  in  such  a  multitude  of  men  who  flock  to  the  East  there  are 
few  besides  scoundrels,  vagabonds,  thieves,  murderers,  perjurers, 
and  adulterers,  from  whose  emigration  a  double  good  is  observed 
to  flow,  the  cause  of  a  twofold  joy.  Indeed  they  give  as  much 
delight  to  those  whom  they  leave  as  to  those  whom  they  go  to 
assist.  Both  rejoice, — those  whom  they  defend  and  those  whom 
they  no  longer  oppress.  Egypt  is  glad  at  their  departure ;  yet 
Mount  Zion  and  the  daughters  of  Judah  shall  be  joyful  over  the 


Arbiter  hettoeen  Hostile  Popes,         1 79 

succor  they  will  bring ;  the  one  for  losing  its  most  cruel  spoilers, 
the  other  at  receiving  its  most  faithful  defenders.'^ 

The  most  distinct  turning  point  in  the  career  of  St.  Ber- 
nard was,  perhaps,  the  death  of  the  Pope  Honorius  11.  on 
Feb.  14th,  1130.  His  death  led  to  a  double  election  to  the 
papacy.  On  the  same  evening  on  which  the  Pope  died, 
Cardinal  Gregory,  of  St.  Angelo,  was  proclaimed  supreme 
Pontiff  under  the  name  of  Innocent  11.,  while  another 
party  went  through  the  form  of  election  with  their  Pope, 
dressed  him  in  pontificals,  and  declared  that  Peter  Leonis 
was  the  vicar  of  Christ,  under  the  title  of  Anacletus  II. 
Innocent  fled  from  Home  to  France,  trusting  in  the  alle- 
giance of  the  nations  of  Northern  Europe  ;  and  although 
Anacletus  had  been  a  monk  of  Cluny,  that  monastery  pro- 
duced a  strong  presumption  in  favor  of  Innocent  by  the 
recognition  of  his  right.  But  the  French  bisho23S  had  not 
decided,  although  it  became  necessary  immediately  to 
decide.  A  council  was  convened  at  Etampes  for  the  pur- 
pose of  discussing  the  claims  of  the  hostile  Popes.  To  tliis 
council  Bernard  was  very  specially  invited  by  the  king  and 
the  chief  bishops.  He  confessed  afterwards  that  he  went 
with  much  fear  and  trembling  ;  nor  are  we  surprised  that 
on  the  road  his  eyes  were  saluted  by  a  vision  in  which  he 
saw  a  large  church,  with  all  the  people  harmoniously 
praising  God.  This  raised  his  spirits.  We  can  scarcely 
conceive  the  importance  of  such  a  schism  as  that  which 
the  council  was  called  in  some  way  to  heal.  Fasting  and 
prayer  preceded  its  dehberations,  and  no  clearer  impression 
can  be  conveyed  of  the  immense  fame  and  influence  Ber- 
nard had  acquired,  than  in  the  fact  that  the  council  unan- 
imously agreed,  first,  that  this  business,  which  concerned 
God,  should  be  entrusted  to  the  man  of  God,  and  that  his 
judgment  should  decide  the  assembly.  We  can  scarcely 
think  that  that  assembly  was  in  great  ignorance  as  to  the 


1 8o        Pulpit  Monogj'apTis :  Bernard, 

verdict  he  was  likely  to  pronounce  ;  nor  can  we  doubt  tliat 
this,  too,  was  one  of  the  occasions  when  that  feHcitous  and 
mar^^ellous  swell  and  sweep  of  all-subduing  eloquence, 
which  mighty  councils  and  vast  convocations  of  princes, 
barons,  and  scholars  were  destined  yet  many  times  to 
prove,  exliibited  much  of  its  matchlessness.  He  rose 
obedient  to  the  call  and  examined  the  whole  question  ;  the 
causes  which  led  to  the  double  election,  the  hfe  and 
character  of  the  first  elected  ;  as  he  advanced,  it  is  said, 
the  Holy  Ghost  seemed  to  speak  through  him.  He  pro- 
nounced Innocent,  without  hesitation  or  reserve,  the  legi- 
timate Pope,  and  the  only  one  they  could  accept  as  such, 
and,  amidst  acclamations  and  praises,  and  vows  of  obedience 
to  Innocent,  the  council  broke  up.  Henceforth,  the  way 
of  Bernard  lay  much  among  the  higher  principahties  and 
powers  of  Europe. 

Immediately  after  the  council  it  is  interesting  to  find 
him  meeting,  face  to  face,  with  our  own  Henry  I.,  the 
wisest  soldier  of  his  age,  and  the  mightiest  monk  of  the 
cloisters  of  Christendom  ;  old  knight  and  young  priest  ; 
and  the  young  priest  conquered  the  old  knight,  for  Henry 
had  been  indisposed  to  acknowledge  Innocent.  The 
enthusiast  convinced  the  man  of  the  world.  "Are  you 
afraid,"  said  he,  "of  incurring  sin  if  you  acknowledge 
Innocent ;  think  how  to  answer  your  other  sins  before 
God,  and  I  will  answer  and  take  account  of  this  one."  And 
Henry  yielded  to  the  quaint  and  not  very  polite  reasoning. 
It  is  not  wonderful  that  Innocent  should  regard  Bernard 
as  a  necessary  friend  and  adviser.  Events,  perhaps,  suV 
sequently  prove  that  an  Elijah-like  kind  of  character  was 
not  the  most  comfortable  companion  for  the  Vatican  ;  but 
for  the  present  he  was  necessary  to  the  Pope.  They  met 
at  Morigny  near  Etampes ;  they  met  also  another  man 
whom  we  shall  presently  see  much  more  distinctly,  who 
was   one   of   the   gueists  that   nig*ht   with   the   Abbot  of 


A  Pope  in  tlie  Valley  of  Wormwood.    1 8 1 

Clairvaux  at  Morigny — Master  Peter  Abelard.  Very  short- 
ly affcer  this,  Innocent,  the  early  days  of  whose  papacy 
were  an}i;hing  but  tranquil,  had  to  receive  the  comparative 
hostilities  of  the  Emperor  Lotharius  at  Liege.  Once  more 
Bernard  came  to  the  rescue.  He  boldly  faced  Lotharius, 
smoothed  matters  of  difference  between  papal  and  imperial 
claims,  persuaded  the  Emperor  to  acquiesce  in  the  claims 
of  Innocent ;  finally,  urged  by  Bernard,  the  Emperor  went 
on  foot  through  the  crowd  towards  the  Pope  on  his  white 
palfrey,  and  when  Innocent  descended  from  his  horse,  the 
Emperor  was  there  to  assist  him  ;  and  thus,  before  all  men 
in  that  age  of  forms  and  ceremonies,  he  proclaimed  his 
submission.  There  was  a  strength  of  texture  in  the  stuff 
of  which  these  churchmen  in  those  days  were  made,  yet 
their  temporahties  had  not  reached  the  dangerous 
ambitiousness  of  more  recent  times,  and  we  find  Innocent 
spent  some  time  at  Clairvaux  on  his  way  homewards.  He, 
perhaps,  was  surprised  at  the  marvellous  austerity,  the 
self-restraint  and  solemn  silence  of  the  plain  unomamented 
church,  and  the  bare  walls  of  the  monastery.  The  monks 
received  the  brilliant  cavalcade  with  closed  fids  ;  they  were 
seen  of  all  and  saw  no  one  ;  nor  do  they  seem  to  have 
treated  the  Pope  much  better  than  they  treated  them- 
selves :  we  read  that  if  a  stray  fish  could  be  caught  it  was 
reserved  for  the  table  of  the  Pope  alone. 

We  must  pass  by  the  circumstances  of  the  Council  of 
Eheims  ;  and  Bernard,  after  this  powerful  intercourse  with 
the  affairs  and  destinies  of  Europe,  returned  to  the  shades 
of  his  own  beautiful  vale — ^returned  to  leisure,  rest,  reflec- 
tion, and  sohtude.  Fifteen  years  had  passed  away  since 
the  grotesque  foundation  had  been  laid  of  the  now  famous 
monastery.  From  his  obscurity  he  had  emerged  to  place 
the  tiara  on  the  head  of  the  chief  of  Christendom  ;  but  he 
was  regarded  himself  as  the  acknowledged  chief  of  the 
most  active  minds  of  Europe  and  of  the  age.     Clairvaux 


1 8  2         Pulpit  Monographs  :  Bernard. 

was  growing  outwardly  and  inwardly.  Houses  connected 
with  it  were  rising  in  many  parts  of  France  ;  and  especially 
through  the  broad,  unbroken  sohtudes  of  Yorkshu^e,  where 
still,  two  of  the  loveliest  ruins — Eiveaux  and  Fontaines — 
keep  the  memory  of  Bernard  ahve,  and  relate  the  mind 
of  the  visitor  to  the  crumbling  wall.  But  Clairvaux  itself 
was  expanding  ;  it  was  too  smaU.  Numbers  were  coming, 
and  the  existing  site  was  quite  insufficient  for  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  order — ^insufficient  for  the  monks,  especially  for 
the  visitors.  Soon  a  nobler  structure  arose.  Large  grants 
of  land  were  easily  obtained,  and  every  needful  supply  for 
the  erection  lavishly  poured  in.  Still  it  was  a  little  haven 
of  shelter  in  the  midst  of  a  stormy  sea.  A  strange  and 
motley  population,  we  know,  assembled  within  those  walls. 
Rough,  strong,  mediaeval  knights,  men  of  appetites  and 
passions,  who  had  spent  their  days  in  intense  animaHsm 
and  blood-shedding,  felt  a  spirit  touch  their  hearts  as  they 
approached  that  place,  or  as  its  tidings  approached  them. 
They  came  in  the  repentance  of  sackcloth  and  in  strange 
agonies  of  soul,  bent  their  stiff,  iron-clad  knees  before  the 
altar  and  in  the  cloister.  We  read  of  some,  their  faces  on 
the  grass,  foaming  at  the  mouth.  To  this  succeeded  a 
period  of  peace  ;  they  entered  the  narrow  pathway  for  life  : 
a  pathway  now  skirted  by  the  gates  of  heU,  now  rising  to 
the  heights  of  heaven. 

And  is  it  not  beautiful  to  think  of  Bernard  returning  to 
these  his  brethren  and  his  children  from  those  interviews 
we  have  seen  him  holding  with  the  statesmen  of  his  age  ; 
and  in  that  same  year,  1135,  then  aged  forty-four,  com- 
mencing to  this  congregation  of  miscellaneous  hearts — 
some  subdued  and  hushed  to  a  peace  deeper  than  that  of 
woods,  and  clouds,  and  hills,  a  peace  that  passeth  all 
understanding — and  some  wild,  and  fevered,  and  beating 
still — that  series  of  discourses  which  have  been  called 
matchless,  in  which  all  the  richness,  the  symbolism,  the 


The  Preacher  in  the  Valley  of  Wormwood.    183 

mystery,  tenderness,  and  beauty  of  the  Ancient  Churcli 
were  pressed  out — ^liis  sermons  on  the  Song  of  Solomon? 
By  these  we  suppose  the  name  of  Bernard  will  ever  be  most 
affectionately  immortalized.  They  form  one  of  the  richest 
roses  of  the  Mediseval  Church.  Let  us  read  them  as  they 
should  be  read;  world- wearied  and  wasted,  but  sighing 
after  peace.  Let  us  think  of  oui'selves  as  listening  to  them 
in  those  still,  cool  aisles,  sometimes  while  the  sun  is  chmb- 
ing  in  the  early  morning  over  the  forest  trees  and  hills,  and 
sometimes  in  what  seems  the  more  sweet  and  suitable  hour 
of  meditative  twilight.  In  reading,  it  is  imperatively  ne- 
cessary to  dismiss  from  the  mind  all  the  refining  casuistries 
of  modern  criticism  ;  but  read  by  the  spirit  *of  the  ancient 
book,  and  with  a  transference  of  soul  to  the  time,  the  place, 
the  auditors,  and  preacher,  there  is  something  magical  and 
sweet  in  their  deep  experiences.  The  preacher  himself  had 
been  a  man  to  whom  hfe  had  been  no  child's  play,  who 
had  thought  of  all  the  burden  of  the  weary  and  intolerable 
world  ;  perhaps  quite  as  much  as  any  who  suppose  they 
have  suffered  more  in  this  day  of  more  fastidious  tastes, 
sometimes  mistaken  for  more  acute  sensibilities  ;  but  he 
had  passed  through  his  novitiate,  and  had  reached  the 
peace  spoken  so  deeply  in  every  syllable  of  those  dis- 
courses. There  came  sliding  in  the  old  monk,  his  mortifi- 
cations almost  done  ;  there  the  young  beginner,  scarcely 
yet  habituated  to  a  life  so  severe  ;  there  the  possessor  of 
broad  lands,  relinquished  now  for  Christ's  sake  ;  laborers 
from  the  hot  fields  ;  or,  rising  from  the  night's  vigils,  they 
gathered  round  the  man  whose  words  and  conversation 
they  verily  believed  to  be  of  another  world.  I  must  let 
you  see  something  of  these  discourses,  so  long  treasured  in 
the  scriptorium  of  the  Church,  that  you  may  estimate  their 
strength  and  beauty  : 

GOD   ALL   AND  IN   ALL. 

But  who  can  grasp  the  magnitude  of  delight  comprehended 


1 84        Pulpit  Monographs :  Bernard. 

in  that  short  word  ?  God  will  be  all  in  all.  Not  to  speak  of  the 
body,  I  perceive  three  things  in  the  soul — reason,  will,  memory ; 
and  these  three  make  up  the  soul.  How  much  each  of  these  in 
this  present  world  lacks  of  completion  and  perfectness,  is  felt  by 
every  one  who  walketh  in  the  Spirit.  Wherefore  is  this,  except 
because  God  is  not  yet  all  in  all  ?  Therefore  it  is  that  our  rea- 
son falters  in  judgment,  that  our  will  is  feeble  and  distracted, 
that  our  memory  confounds  us  by  its  forgetfulness.  We  are  sub- 
jected unwillingly  to  this  threefold  weakness,  but  hope  abides. 
For  He  who  fills  with  good  things  the  desires  of  the  soul.  He 
himself  will  be  to  the  reason  the  fulness  of  light ;  to  the  will,  the 
abundance  of  peace ;  to  the  memory,  the  unbroken  smoothness 
of  eternity.  O  truth !  O  charity !  O  eternity !  O  blessed  and 
blessing  Trinity  !  to  thee  my  miserable  trinity  miserably  groans, 
while  it  is  in  exile  from  thee.  Departing  from  thee,  in  what  er- 
rors, griefs,  and  fears  is  it  involved!  Alas,  for  what  a  trinity 
have  we  exchanged  thee  away.  My  heart  is  disturbed,  and  hence 
my  grief;  my  strength  has  forsaken  me,  and  hence  my  fear  ;  the 
light  of  my  eyes  is  not  with  me,  and  hence  my  error.  O  trinity  of 
my  soul !  what  a  changed  trinity  dost  thou  show  me  in  mine  exile  ? 
"  But  why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul !  and  why  art  thou 
disquieted  within  me  ?  Hoi3e  thou  in  God,  for  I  shall  yet  praise 
liim,"  that  is,  when  error  shall  have  left  my  mind,  sorrow  my 
will,  fears  my  memory;  and  serenity,  sweetness,  and  eternal 
peace  shall  have  come  in  their  stead.  The  first  of  these  things 
will  be  done  by  the  God  of  truth ;  the  second,  by  the  God  of 
charity ;  the  third,  by  the  God  of  omnipotence  ;  that  God  may 
be  all  in  all :  the  reason  receiving  light  inextinguishable,  the 
will  peace  imperturbable,  the  memory  cleaving  to  a  fountain 
which  shall  never  fail.  You  may  judge  for  yourselves  whether 
you  would  rightly  assign  the  first  to  the  Son,  the  second  to  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  the  last  to  the  Father;  in  such  a  manner,  how- 
ever, that  you  take  away  nothing  of  any  of  them,  either  from 
the  Father,  or  the  Son,  or  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Of  course,  a  deep  mystical  fervor  pervades  all  these  ser- 
mons, as  in  the  following  illustrative  extract  on 

THE   FEET   OF   GOD. 

But  I  must  not  pass  over  in  silence  those  spiritual  feet  of  God, 


The  Feet  of  God.  185 

which,  in  the  first  place,  it  behoves  the  penitent  to  kiss  in  a 
spiritual  manner.  I  well  know  your  curiosity,  which  does  not 
willingly  allow  anything  obscure  to  pass  by  it ;  nor  indeed  is  it 
a  contemptible  thing  to  know  what  are  those  feet  which  the 
Scripture  so  frequently  mentions  in  connection  with  God.  Some- 
times he  is  mentioned  as  standing  on  them,  as  "  We  will  wor- 
ship in  the  place  where  thy  feet  have  stood ;"  sometimes  as  walk- 
ing, as  "  I  will  dwell  in  them  and  will  walk  in  them  ;"  sometimes 
even  as  running,  as  "  He  rejoiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race." 
If  it  appear  right  to  the  apostle  to  call  the  head  of  Christ  God, 
it  appears  to  me  as  not  unnatural  to  consider  his  feet  as  repre- 
senting man — one  of  which  I  shall  name  mercy,  and  the  other 
judgment.  Those  two  words  are  known  to  you,  and  the  Scrip- 
ture makes  mention  of  them  in  many  places. 

On  these  two  feet,  fitly  moving  under  one  divine  head,  Christ, 
born  of  a  woman,  he  who  was  invisible  under  the  law,  then  made 
Emmanuel  [God  with  us],  was  seen  on  the  earth,  and  conversed 
with  men.  Of  a  truth,  he  even  now  passes  amongst  us,  relieving 
and  healing  those  oppressed  by  the  devil ;  but  spiritually  and 
invisibly.  With  these  feet,  I  say,  he  walks  through  devout 
minds,  incessantly  purifying  and  searching  the  hearts  and  reins 
of  the  faithful. 

Happy  is  that  mind  in  which  the  Lord  Jesus  has  placed  both 
of  these  feet.  You  may  recognize  that  mind  by  these  two  signs, 
which  it  must  necessarily  bear  as  the  marks  of  the  divine  foot- 
prints. These  are  hope  and  fear.  The  first  representing  the 
image  of  judgment,  the  other  of  mercy.  Justly  doth  the  Lord 
take  pleasure  in  them  that  fear  him,  in  those  that  hope  in  his 
mercy;  seeing  that  fear  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  of  which 
also  hope  is  the  increase,  and  charity  the  consummation.  These 
things  being  so,  in  this  first  kiss  which  is  received  at  the  feet, 
is  not  a  little  fruit ;  only  be  careful  that  you  are  not  robbed  of 
either  kiss.  If  you  are  pricked  by  the  pain  of  sin,  and  the  fear 
of  judgment,  you  have  pressed  your  lips  on  the  foot  of  judgment 
and  truth.  If  you  temper  this  fear  and  pain  by  regarding  the 
divine  goodness,  and  by  the  hope  of  forgiveness,  you  may  know 
that  you  have  embraced  the  foot  of  mercy.  It  profits  not  to  kiss 
one  without  the  other,  because  the  dwelling  on  judgment  only 


1 86        Pulpit  Monograplis :  BevTiard. 

casts  you  into  tlie  abyss  of  desperation,  while  a  deceitful  trust 
in  mercy  generates  the  worst  kind  of  security. 

To  me  also,  wretched  one,  it  has  been  given  sometimes  to  sit 
beside  the  feet  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  with  all  devotion  to  em- 
brace first  one,  then  the  other,  as  far  as  his  loving-kindness  con- 
descended to  permit  me.  But  if  ever,  forgetful  of  mercy,  through 
the  stings  of  conscience  I  have  dwelt  too  long  on  the  thought  of 
judgment,  at  once  cast  down  with  incredible  fear  and  confusion, 
enveloped  in  dark  shadows  of  horror,  breathless  from  out  of  the 
deeps  I  cried,  "  Who  knoweth  the  power  of  thy  wrath,  and 
through  fear  of  thee  who  can  reckon  thy  displeasure ;"  if  it  has 
chanced  that  I  have  then  clung  too  closely  to  the  foot  of  mercy, 
after  forsaking  the  other,  such  carelessness  and  indifference  have 
come  upon  me,  that  my  prayers  have  grown  cold,  my  work  has 
been  neglected,  my  speech  has  been  less  cautious,  my  laughter 
more  ready,  and  the  whole  state  of  both  my  outer  and  inner  man 
less  firm.  Learning  then  from  experience,  not  judgment  alone, 
nor  mercy  alone,  but  mercy  and  judgment  together,  will  I  sing 
unto  thee,  O  Lord ;  I  will  neyer  forget  those  justifications ;  they 
both  shall  be  my  song  in  the  house  of  my  pilgrimage,  until  mercy 
being  exalted  above  judgment,  then  misery  shall  cease,  and  my 
glory  shall  sing  to  Thee  for  ever,  and  not  be  silent. 

These  were  the  discourses  which  charmed  multitudes  to 
the  cloisters  of  Clairvaux.  In  our  day  the  practical  bias  of 
life  has  so  echpsed  and  outstripped  the  speculative,  that  it 
is  difficult  to  conceive  how  men  could  have  renounced  all 
earthly  claims  and  every  earthly  emolument  and  position, 
that  they  might  have  the  opportunity  of  hstening  to  such 
spiritual  raptures,  and  indulging  in  the  austere  pleasures 
of  the  spiritual  life.  It  is  quite  wonderful  to  us  to  see  those 
man-slaying  barons  drawn  into  the  monastic  life,  often  as 
by  a  force  they  could  not  resist.  Strange  conversions  took 
place.  They  hovered  near  the  abbey,  half  knowing,  half 
dreading  their  fate  ;  retired  from  it  and  returned,  as  a  moth 
retimis  to  the  candle  with  increased  haste.  Mr.  Morison 
tells  the  stories  of  knights  riding  to  a  tournament,  or  a  fair, 
putting  up  over  night  at  the  welcome  and  opportune  mon- 


The  Death  of  his  Brother  Gerard.        187 

astery,  and  spending  a  quieter  night  than  was  usual  with 
them.  And  the  place,  and  solemnity,  and  order  of  the 
monastery  had  not  been  witnessed  in  vain.  The  psalm- 
singing,  and  the  ceremonies,  and  the  music  of  the  frequent 
bells,  sent  emotions  of  awe  and  gentleness  iato  the  wearied 
hearts  of  some  of  them.  Perhaps  they  noticed  some  old 
companion  in  arms,  who  was  heard  last  shouting  in  the 
shock  of  battle,  now,  instead,  shouting  Gregorian  chants. 
The  rude  barbarian  nature  is  touched,  and  stays  or  returns, 
to  seek  peace  ia  the  monastery  too.  There  was  peace  in 
the  monastery,  no  doubt  ;  but  those  hearts  which  beat  so 
vehemently  beneath  the  cuirass  and  the  breastplate  we  may 
be  sure  often  chafed  against  the  new  rigors  of  the  cage. 
The  peace,  however,  which  others  felt — the  peace  which 
so  profoundly  breathes  along  the  sermons  on  the  Canticles, 
w^as  scarcely. the  possession  of  the  mighty  Abbot.  He  ex- 
perienced rather  a  foretaste  of  its  pleasures,  and  presented 
it  in  his  mellifluous  eloquence.  He  was  called  upon  in  his 
vast  correspondence  to  iuterfere,  not  only  in  the  care  of  all 
the  churches,  but  persons  of  distinction  throughout  Europe 
seem  to  have  thought  that  Bernard's  time,  attention,  and 
iofluence  should  be  at  their  disposal  Bishops  ia  England, 
the  Queen  of  Jerusalem,  the  Kiags  of  France,  and  Italy, 
and  Britain,  and  abbots  and  ecclesiastics  without  number. 

And  his  brother  Gerard  fell  sick  and  died  ;  he  was  one 
of  the  brethren  of  Clairvaux.  The  bereaved  Abbot  per- 
formed for  him,  whom  he  had  most  tenderly  loved,  the 
funeral  service.  The  brother  had  been  also  tenderly  and 
deeply  loved  by  his  brethren,  and  when  his  spirit  passed 
away  we  are  told  how  the  sobs  and  tears  of  others,  not 
less  than  those  of  Bernard,  expressed  their  grief.  Gerard 
was  his  second  brother.  He  had  been  a  bold  knight,  and 
had  taken  a  worldly  view  of  the  Abbot's  early  enthusiasm. 
"  Ah !  "  said  the  yoimg  preacher,  "  tribulation  will  give  thee 
understandmg,  and  thou  shalt  fear  greatly,  but  shalt  in 


1 88         Pulpit  Monographs :  Bernard. 

nowise  perish."  There  was  a  prophecy  in  the  words : 
tribulation  came.  "  I  turn  monk,"  said  he,  "  a  monk  of 
Citeaux."  He  was  one  of  his  brother's  iii'st  converts.  It 
was,  upon  the  day  of  his  death,  one  of  Bernai'd's  duties  to 
pursue  his  exposition  of  the  Song  of  Songs,  and  at  the 
appointed  time  he  ascended  the  pulpit  and  preached  that 
funeral  sermon,  which  is  also  one  of  the  most  famous  of 
the  whole  course,  from  Solomon's  Song  i.  5  :  "As  the  tents 
of  Kedar,  as  the  curtains  of  Solomon  " — that  is,  dark  as  is 
the  first,  comely  as  is  the  last. 

And  I  quote  again  fi^om  these  extraordinary  expositions, 
so  illustrative  of  the  pulpit  method  of  the  cloisters  of  the 
Middle  Ages — A^  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the  curtains  of  Solomon, 

We  must  begin  from  this  point,  because  it  was  here  that  the 
preceding  sermon  was  brought  to  a  close.  You  are  waiting  to 
hear  what  these  words  mean,  and  how  they  are  connected  with 
the  previous  clause,  since  a  comparison  is  made  between  them. 
Perhaps  both  members  of  the  comparison,  viz.,  "  As  the  tents 
of  Kedar,  as  the  curtains  of  Solomon,"  refer  only  to  the  first 
words,  ^'  I  am  black."  It  may  be,  however,  that  the  simile  is  . 
extended  to  both  clauses,  and  each  is  compared  with  each.  The 
former  sense  is  the  more  simple,  the  latter  the  more  obscure. 
Let  us  try  both,  beginning  with  the  latter,  which  seems  the 
more  difficult.  There  is  no  difficulty,  however,  in  the  first  com- 
parison, "  I  am  black  as  the  tents  of  Kedar,"  but  only  in  the 
last.  For  Kedar,  which  is  interpreted  to  mean  "  darkness  "  or 
"  gloom,"  may  be  compared  with  blackness  justly  enough ;  but 
the  curtains  of  Solomon  are  not  so  easily  likened  to  beauty. 
Moreover,  who  does  not  see  that  "  tents  "  fit  harmoniously  with 
the  comparison  ?  For  what  is  the  meaning  of  "  tents,"  except 
our  bodies,  in  which  we  sojourn  for  a  time.  Nor  have  we  "  an 
abiding  city,  but  we  seek  one  to  come."  In  our  bodies,  as 
under  tents,  we  carry  on  warfare.  Truly,  we  are  violent  to  take 
the  kingdom.  Indeed,  the  life  of  man  here  on  earth  is  a  war- 
fare ;  and  as  long  as  we  do  battle  in  this  body,  we  are  absent 
from  the  Lord,  i.e.,  from  the  light.  For  the  Lord  is  light,  and 
so  far  as  any  one  is  not  in  him,  so  far  he  is  in  darkness,  i.e.,  in 


Tents  of  Kedar — Curtains  of  Solomon.     189 

Kedar.  Let  each  one  then  acknowledge  the  sorrowful  exclama- 
tion as  his  own  :  "  Woe  is  me  that  my  sojourn  is  prolonged ! 
I  have  dwelt  w^ith  those  who  dwell  in  Kedar.  My  soul  hath 
long  sojourned  in  a  strange  land."  Therefore  this  habitation 
of  the  body  is  not  the  mansion  of  the  citizen,  nor  the  house 
of  the  native,  but  either  the  soldier's  tent  or  the  traveller's  inn. 
This  body,  I  say,  is  a  tent,  and  a  tent  of  Kedar,  because,  by  its 
interference,  it  prevents  the  soul  from  beholding  the  infinite 
light,  nor  does  it  allow  her  to  see  the  light  at  all,  except 
through  a  glass  darkly,  and  not  face  to  face. 

Do  you  not  see  whence  blackness  comes  to  the  church — 
whence  a  certain  rust  cleaves  to  even  the  fairest  souls  ?  Doubt- 
less, it  comes  from  the  tents  of  Kedar,  from  the  practice  of 
laborious  warfare,  from  the  long  continuance  of  a  painful 
sojourn,  from  the  straits  of  our  grievous  exile,  from  our  feeble 
cumbersome  bodies ;  for  the  corruptible  body  presseth  down 
the  soul,  and  the  earthy  tabernacle  weigheth  down  the  mind 
that  museth  upon  many  things.  Therefore  the  soul's  desire  to 
be  loosed,  that  being  freed  from  the  body  they  may  fly*into  the 
embraces  of  Christ.  Wherefore  one  of  the  miserable  ones  said, 
groaning — "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ? "  For  a  soul  of  this  kind  knoweth 
that,  w^hile  in  the  tents  of  Kedar,  she  cannot  be  entirely  free 
from  spot  or  wrinkle,  nor  from  some  stains  of  blackness,  and 
wishes  to  go  forth  and  to  put  them  off.  And  here  we  have  tho 
reason  why  the  spouse  calls  herself  black  as  tlie  J;ents  of  Kedar. 
But  now,  how  is  she  beautiful  as  the  curtains  of  Solomon? 
Behind  these  curtains  I  feel  that  an  indescribable  holiness  and 
sublimity  are  veiled,  which  I  dare  not  presume  to  touch,  save 
at  the  command  of  Him  who  shrouded  and  sealed  the  mystery. 
For  I  have  read,  "  He  that  is  a  searcher  of  Majesty  shall  be  over- 
whelmed with  the  glory."  I  pass  on  therefore.  It  will  devolve 
on  you,  meanwhile,  to  obtain  grace  by  your  prayers,  that  we 
may  the  more  readily,  because  more  confidently,  recur  to  a 
subject  which  needs  attentive  minds ;  and  it  may  be  that  the 
pious  knocker  at  the  door  will  discover  what  the  bold  explorer 
seeks  in  vain. 

The  bursting  forth  of   the  grief  is  most  pathetic  and 


1 90        Pulpit  Monographs :  Bernard. 

beautiful.  "  It  was  fitting  that  I  should  depend  for  every- 
thing on  him  who  was  everything  to  me.  He  left  me  but 
httle  besides  the  name  and  honor  of  superintendent,  for  he 
did  the  work.  I  was  called  Abbot,  but  he  monopolised  the 
Abbot's  cares." 

You  know,  my  children,  the  reasonableness  of  my  sorrow — 
you  know  the  lamentable  wound  I  have  received.  You  appre- 
ciate what  a  friend  has  left  me  in  this  walk  of  life  which  I  havo 
chosen — how  prompt  to  labor,  how  gentle  in  manner !  Who 
w^as  so  necessary  to  me  ?  To  whom  was  I  equally  dear  ?  He 
was  my  brother  by  blood,  but  more  than  brother  by  religion. 
Deplore  my  misfortune,  I  beseech  you,  who  know  these  things. 
I  was  weak  in  body,  and  he  sustained  me  ;  downcast  in  spirit, 
and  he  comforted  me ;  slow  and  negligent,  and  he  stimulated 
me ;  careless  and  forgetful,  and  he  admonished  me.  Whither 
hast  thou  been  torn  from  me — whither  hast  thou  been  carried 
from  my  arms,  O  thou  man  of  one  mind  with  me,  thou  man 
after  my  own  heart  ?  We  loved  each  other  in  life ;  how  are  we 
separated  in  death  !  O  most  bitter  separation,  which  nothing 
could  have  accomplished  but  death  !  For  when  w^ouldest  thou 
have  deserted  me  in  life  ?  Truly,  a  horrible  divorce,  altogether 
the  work  of  death.  Who  would  not  have  had  pity  on  the  sweet 
bond  of  our  mutual  love  but  death,  the  enemy  of  all  sweetness  ? 
Well  has  raging  death  done  his  work ;  for,  by  taking  one,  he 
has  stricken  'two.  Is  not  this  death  to  me  also  ?  Yea,  verily, 
more  to  me  than  to  Gerard — to  me,  to  whom  life  is  preserved, 
far  gloomier  than  any  death.  I  live  that  I  may  die  living,  and 
shall  I  call  that  life  ?  How  much  more  merciful,  O  stem  death, 
hadst  thou  deprived  me  of  the  use,  than  of  the  fruit  of  life. 
For  life  without  fruit  is  a  more  grievous  death.  Again,  a 
double  ruin  is  prepared  for  the  unfruitful  tree — the  axe  and  the 
fire.  Hating,  therefore,  the  labors  of  my  hands,  thou  hast 
removed  from  me  the  friend  through  whose  zeal  chiefly  they 
bore  fruit,  if  they  ever  did.  Better  would  it  have  been  for  me, 
O  Gerard  1  to  have  lost  my  life  than  thy  presence,  who  wcrt 
the  anxious  instigator  of  my  studies  in  the  Lord,  my  faithful 
helper,  my  careful  examiner.     Why,  I  ask,  have  we  loved,  only 


Funeral  Sermon  for  Gerard.         i  g  i 

to  lose  one  another  ?  Hard  lot !  but  I  am  to  be  pitied,  not  he ; 
for  if  thou,  dear  brother,  hast  lost  dear  ones  they  are  replaced 
by  dearer  still ;  but  what  consolation  awaits  wretched  me,  de- 
prived of  thee,  my  only  comfort  ?  Equally  pleasing  to  both 
was  the  companionship  of  our  bodies  by  reason  of  the  unison 
of  our  minds,  but  the  separation  has  wounded  only  me.  The 
joys  of  life  were  shared  between  us  ;  its  sadness  and  gloom  are 
mine  alone.  God's  wrathful  displeasure  goeth  over  me,  and  his 
indignation  lieth  hard  upon  me.  The  delights  we  derived  from 
each  other's  society  and  conversation,  I  only  have  lost,  whilst 
thou  hast  exchanged  them  for  others,  and  in  the  exchange  great 
has  been  thy  gain. 

In  place  of  us,  dearest  brother,  whom  thou  hast  not  with  thee 
to-day ;  what  an  exceeding  multitude  of  joys  and  blessings  is 
thine  !  Instead  of  me  thou  hast  Christ ;  nor  canst  thou  feel 
thy  absence  from  thy  brethren  here,  now  that  thou  rejoicest  in 
choruses  of  angels.  Nothing,  therefore,  can  make  thee  deplore 
the  loss  of  our  society,  seeing  that  the  Lord  of  Majesty  and  the 
hosts  of  Heaven  vouchsafe  to  thee  their  presence.  But  what 
have  I  in  thy  stead  ?  What  would  I  not  give  to  know  what 
thou  now  thinkest  of  thy  Bernard,  tottering  amid  cares  and 
afflictions,  and  bereaved  of  thee,  the  staflf  of  my  weakness  ?  if, 
indeed,  it  be  permitted  to  one,  who  is  plunged  into  the  abyss 
of  light  and  absorbed  in  the  great  ocean  of  eternal  felicity,  still 
to  think  of  the  miserable  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  It  may  be 
that  though  thou  knewest  us  in  the  flesh,  thou  knowest  us  no 
more,  and  since  thou  hast  entered  into  the  powers  of  the  Lord, 
thou  rememberest  only  His  justice,  forgetful  of  us.  Moreover, 
he  that  is  joined  unto  the  Lord  is  one  spirit,  and  is  entirely 
changed  into  one  holy  feeling  ;  neither  can  he  think  of  or  wish 
for  aught  but  God  and  the  things  which  God  thinks  and  wishes, 
being  full  of  God.  But  God  is  Love,  and  the  more  closely  a 
man  is  united  to  God  the  fuller  he  is  of  love.  Further,  God  is 
without  passions,  but  not  without  sympathy,  for  His  nature  is 
always  to  have  mercy  and  to  spare.  Therefore  thou  must  needs 
be  merciful,  since  thou  art  joined  to  the  Merciful  One ;  although 
misery  now  be  far  from  thee,  thou  canst  compassionate  others 
although  thou  suflferest  not  thyself     Thy  love  is  not  weakened, 


192        Ful^yit  Monographs :  Bernard, 

but  changed.  Nor  because  thou  hast  put  on  God  hast  thou  laid 
aside  all  care  for  us,  for  "  He  also  careth  for  us."  Thou  hast 
discarded  thine  infirmities,  but  not  thy  affections.  ".Charity 
never  faileth ; "  thou  wilt  not  forget  me  at  the  last. 

I  fancy  I  hear  my  brother  saying  to  me,  "  Can  a  woman  forget 
her  sucking  child,  that  she  should  not  have  compassion  on  the 
son  of  her  womb  ?  Yea,  they  may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget 
thee."  Truly  it  were  lamentable  if  he  did.  Whom  shall  I  con- 
sult in  doubtful  matters  ?  To  whom  shall  I  trust  in  trial  and 
misfortune  ?  Who  will  bear  my  burdens  ?  Who  will  protect  me 
from  harm  ?  Did  not  Gerard's  eyes  prevent  my  steps  ?  Alas, 
my  cares  and  anxieties  entered  more  deeply  into  Gerard's  breast 
than  into  my  own,  ravaged  it  more  freely,  wrung  it  more  acutely. 
His  wise  and  gentle  speech  saved  me  from  secular  conversation, 
and  gave  me  to  the  silence  which  I  loved.  The  Lord  hath  given 
him  a  learned  tongue,  so  that  he  knew  when  it  was  proper  to 
speak.  By  the  prudence  of  his  answers,  and  the  grace  given 
him  from  above,  he  so  satisfied  both  our  own  people  and  stran- 
gers, that  scarcely  any  one  needed  me  who  had  previously  seen 
Gerard.  He  hastened  to  meet  the  visitors,  placing  himself  in 
the  way  lest  they  should  disturb  my  leisure.  Such  as  he  could 
not  dispose  of  himself,  those  he  brought  in  to  me ;  the  rest  he 
sent  away.     O  diligent  man !     O  faithful  friend !  * 

Yes  it  is,  I  think,  the  most  wonderful  of  funeral  orations  ; 
and  then  that  pathetic  close  :  ''  And  now  my  tears  put  an 
end  to  my  words,  I  pray  Thee  teach  me  how  to  put  an  end 
to  my  tears." 

To  dwell  upon  all  the  minor  details  of  the  life  of  the  il- 
lustrious Churchman,  would  be  to  write  at  length  the  his- 
tory of  the  times.  The  year  following  that  in  which  his 
brother  died,  1140,  when  he  was  forty-nine  years  of  age, 
that  great  duel  was  fought,  which  has  never  been  allowed 
to  pass  from  the  memory,  not  merely  of  scholars,  but  even 
of  cursory  readers, — the  contest  of  Bernard  with  the  her- 

*  I  have  quoted  lengthily  Mr.  Morison's  admirable  and  vigorous 
translation,  for,  indeed,  this  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  funeral 
orations. 


A  helard  and  Bernard.  193 

esies  of  Abelard.  Time  forbids  me  to  dwell  upon  the  ro- 
mantic history  and  fortunes  of  that  most  famous  of  her- 
esiarchs.  From  bis  pages  innumerable  heretics  have  filled 
their  minds  with  qualms  and  crotchets,  sometimes  of  con- 
science, more  frequently  of  notion  and  opinion.  Perhaps 
he  may  be  best  described  by  saying,  that  what  David  Hume 
has  been  to  our  own  and  to  the  previous  age,  that  Abelard 
was  to  his  own  and  to  the  immediately  subsequent  times. 
He  pierced  into  that  dread  domain  in  which  men  inquire 
for  human  and  philosophical  reasons — where  they  declare 
their  wish  to  understand  as  well  as  beUeve.  He  and  his 
disciples  were  the  imconscious  parents  of  a  good  deal.  But 
when  he  was  condemned  and  sent  in  custody  to  the  mon- 
astery of  Si  Bernard,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  the  an- 
guish which  extorted  from  him  that  cry — "Good  Jesus, 
where  wast  thou  then?"  But  he  was  a  vain,  sensitive, 
Rousseau-like  being  ;  yet  it  is  also  impossible  not  to  notice 
how  much  of  the  noble  there  was  in  his  character,  and  how 
he  labored,  with  practical  earnestness,  to  reform  many  of 
the  crying  abuses  of  the  Church.  Upon  Bernard,  to  whom 
religion  was  faith  and  certainty,  or  nothing,  we  can  easily 
conceive  he  would  look  with  a  haughty  and  superciHous 
condescension  and  pity.  I  pass  all  his  interesting  relations 
\tith  Heloise,  which  have  also,  no  doubt,  materially  added 
to  his  fame. 

But  the  mind  of  the  man  could  not  rest  and  be  still 
and  silent,  and  he  was  the  apostle  of  free  inquiry.  His 
inquiries  had  even  pierced  into  the  holiest  of  all — the 
very  ark  of  the  Trinity,  The  disputes  of  the  age  were  most 
significant ;  and  Abelard  and  Bernard,  as  the  foremost  men, 
must  inevitably  come  into  colhsion.  Bernard  denounced 
the  opinions  of  Abelard,  and  Abelard  challenged  Bernard 
to  a  logical  disputation.  All  my  hearers  know  of  that  great 
gathering,  that  expected  tournament  at  Sens,  and  how,  to 
the  amazement  of  that  wonderful  assembly,  when  the  hour 
9 


1 94        Pulpit  Monograplis  :  Bernard, 

came,  Abelard  refused  to  plead,  but  appealed  from  his  ad- 
versary and  from  the  assembly  to  Eome. 

As  Bernard  drew  near  to  the  close  of  his  life,  his  strength, 
like  that  of  meaner  men,  became  labor  and  sorrow,  espe- 
cially as  the  time  came  when  he  very  earnestly  desired  to 
rest  altogether.  He  was  called  to  preach  before  the  Pope 
and  the  King  of  France  the  second  crusade.  Vezelai  was 
the  place  fixed  for  that  wondrous  gathering.  The  town 
could  not  hold  the  people  assembled.  The  vast  throng 
was  convened  upon  the  declivity  of  a  hill  overlooking  the 
plain  of  Yezelai ;  the  king,  Louis  VII.,  and  his  queen  were 
there  ;  barons  and  knights,  and  innumerable  multitudes  of 
hardly  wrought  peasants.  But  king,  or  queen,  or  nobles 
were  not  the  objects  of  attraction.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux 
was  there  on  the  top  of  the  hill.  A  high  platform  of  wood 
was  raised.  On  this  stood  the  preacher  and  the  king  alone. 
Thence  he  could  be  seen  by  all,  if  not  heard  ;  and  from 
those  lips  flew  the  words  of  love,  aspiration,  and  sublime 
self-sacrifice.  The  wondrous  hght  of  that  thin,  calm  face, 
the  flash  of  tenderness  and  terror  from  those  dove-like  eyes, 
communicated  themselves  to  the  crowd.  Then  rose  the  cry 
for  "  Crosses !  crosses !  "  the  murmur  fi'om  the  vast  sea  of 
faces.  He  scattered  them  broadcast  among  the  people. 
They  were  soon  exhausted.  He  tore  up  his  monk's  cowi 
to  satisfy  the  demand.  He  did  nothing  but  make  crosses 
so  long  as  he  remained  in  the  town.  The  mind  of  Europe 
spoke  through  Bernard.  The  crusade  was  proclaimed. 
And  now  he  travelled  through  Germany  to  preach  the  sec- 
ond crusade  at  Friburg,  Basle,  Constance,  Spires,  Cologne, 
Frankfort,  Mayence ;  and,  wherever  he  went,  there  the 
same  tumult  gathered  round  him.  A  daily  repetition  of 
the  scene  on  the  hill  of  Vezelai  took  place.  A  simultaneous 
rush  of  the  whole  population  to  see  him  and  to  hear  him, 
and  then  the  assumption  of  the  cross  by  the  larger  portion 
of  the  able-bodied  male  inhabitants.     Bci-nard  says,  that 


Death  of  the  Last  of  the  Fathers,       195 

scarcely  one  man  was  left  to  seven  women.  At  Frankfort, 
lie  nearly  lost  his  life.  The  crowd  so  beset  him  that  he  was 
in  danger  of  being  suffocated.  Conrad,  the  Emperor,  for  a 
time  did  his  best  to  keep  off  the  press  ;  but  it  was  more 
than  he  could  do.  At  last,  laying  aside  his  cloak,  he  gripped 
Bernard  in  his  brawny  arms,  and  hoisting  him  over  his 
shoulders,  carried  him  away  in  safety.  A  procession  of 
nuracles,  too,  attended  him  on  his  way  ;  but  they  astonished 
him.  "  I  can 't  think,"  he  says,  "  what  these  miracles  mean." 
It  is  altogether  a  sad,  painful  story  of  the  fanaticism,  not 
only  of  a  great  mind,  but  of  the  age.  We  turn  with  pleas- 
ure from  his  wild  proclamation  of  the  fanaticism  of  the 
sword  against  the  Infidel,  to  his  equally  enthusiastic,  and 
more  noble  and  Christian  defence  of  the  Jews  from  the  hor- 
rors of  persecution.  This  defence  was  one  of  the  few  items 
of  oiu:  saint's  history  in  which  he  was  in  advance  of  his  age. 

The  crusade  was  one  long  disaster  ;  and  the  fate  of  the 
mighty  movement  was  sharply  visited  upon  the  head  of  its 
chief  apostle.  But  other  cares  pressed  upon  him,  especially 
the  conquest  of  innumerable  heresies,  the  writing  of  many 
books  and  letters  connected  with  the  defence  of  the  faith, 
and  also  with  efforts  to  repress  the  rising  of  the  papacy,  of 
which  he  only  saw  the  beginning. 

He  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-two.  As  he  was  dying,  even 
ecclesiastics  gathered  round  his  dying  bed  to  talk  of  public 
affairs ;  but  they  could  not  interest  him.  "  Marvel  not," 
said  he,  "I  am  already  no  longer  of  this  world."  Earnest 
contendings  of  prayerful  struggles  went  on  around,  and  in 
the  delitium  of  their  grief,  his  friends  implored  him  to  stay  ; 
and  they  created  some  contest  in  the  mind  of  the  expiring 
saint,  but  only  to  the  lifting  his  eyes,  and  the  expression  of 
his  wish  that  God's  will  might  be  done, — dying  in  the  faith 
and  practice  of  his  great  and  memorable  saying,  "  So  far 
from  being  able  to  answer  for  my  sins,  I  cannot  answer 
even  for  my  righteousness." 


VI. 

The  Great  Preachers  of  the  Seven- 
teenth and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 


1 

HAVE  said  that  the  history  of  the  Church  is  the 
history  of  the  pulpit ;  I  may  also  say  that  the 
history  of  Protestantism  is  the  history  of  free 
speech  ;  and  while  we  have  to  notice,  in  the 
course  of  the  history,  the  alliance  of  many  things  to 
which  we  can  only  express,  for  the  most  part,  entire  dis- 
sent, it  is  gratifying  to  notice  that,  in  our  country  and  in 
the  pulpit  of  Protestantism,  no  speech  has  obtained  any 
very  great  or  wide  currency,  which  has  not,  in  a  very  dis- 
tinct manner,  represented  "  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Je^ms"  The 
pulpit  of  Protestantism  is  placed  at  a  great  disadvantage, 
all  its  faults  and  sins  are  open  to  the  eye.  The  ages  of 
Protestantism  have  been  the  ages  of  the  press ;  we  have 
not  had  the  means  of  exercising  a  rigid  watchfulness  over 
the  abberrations  of  speech  of  the  troops  of  preaching  friars, 
while  all  the  unguarded  heresies  of  speech  and  thought  of 
the  men  of  the  Protestant  pulpit  stand  as  if  in  a  panopti- 
con. The  Protestant  pulpit  has  been  remarkable  for  its 
free  speech — and  it  must  be  admitted  that  speech  has  not 
at  all  times  been  guarded  by  good  taste  and  good  sense  ; 
we  may  speak  in  condemnation  of  those  who  have  had  so 

(196) 


Free  Speech  in  the  Church.  1 97 

little  reverence  for  ignorance  and  infancy,  that  they  have 
made  their  pubHc  address  the  medium  for  the  exhibition  cf 
all  the  infirm  deformities  and  ulcers,  the  doubts  aH  unre- 
solved and  unexplored  in  their  own  life  and  faith. 

The  rise  of  Protestantism  was  the  birth  also  of  Puritan- 
ism, and  in  their  ministry  we  trace  the  origin  of  a  pulpit 
power  which  is  very  distinctly  separated  from  that  of  the 
Komish  Church.  We  have  never  enough  cultivated  that 
which  the  Popish  pulpit  cultivated  exclusively  ;  we  confine 
the  intention  of  our  pulpit  to  those  twofold  energies, — jper- 
suasion  and  conviction,  but  these  are  so  simply  mental  ;  or, 
if  emotional,  they  are  so  entirely  through  the  operation  of 
thought,  that  they  very  partially,  I  think,  represent  our 
work  ;  and  they  do  not  represent  the  work  of  the  Eo- 
mish  preacher  at  all ;  his  aim  has  been  to  subdue,  to 
overwhelm,  as  he  overwhelms  by  the  power  of  music  and 
the  efficacy  of  sensuous  representations.  You  will  see  that 
it  is  possible  for  such  preaching  to  affect  very  powerfully, 
but  to  leave  the  conscience  quite  unimpressed  and  un- 
touched ;  such  preaching  is  akin  to  the  power  of  music, 
and  such  preachers  preach  with  the  same  effects  and  results 
{IS  those  with  which  the  master  and  prophet  of  song  might 
sing  ;  the  very  thing  is  described  to  the  life  in  the  prophet 
Ezekiel — "  Lo,  thou  art  unto  them  as  a  very  lovely  song,  of 
one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice  and  can  j)lay  well  on  an  in- 
strument, for  they  hear  thy  words,  but  they  do  them  not.'' 

Let  me  spend  a  moment  m  saying  how  many  venerable 
names  there  are  all  unknown.  I  have  not  taken  you  to  St. 
Paul's  Cross,  that  famous  place  where  Latimer,  Hooker, 
Hooper,  EmLEY,  and  many  another  eloquent  tongue  spoke. 
We  do  not  know  the  wealth  of  the  old  shelves  where  still 
are  to  be  found  their  remains.  Here  I  have  one,  Thomas 
Playfere,  belonging  rather  to  the  sixteenth  than  the  seven- 
teenth century,  he  was  professor  of  divinity  in  the  Univer- 
sity of    Cambridge  ;   a  Calvinist,  I  may  say  almost,   of 


198  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Eigliteentli  Oenturies. 

course  :  and  he,  further,  was  a  fine  type  of  the  direct  method 
which  Puritanism  fastened  on  men's  consciences.  Dr. 
Playfere  has  been  called  a  trifler,  unrivalled  in  an  ornate  and 
flowery  style  ;  but  he  is  hvely,  and  life-giving,  and  resem- 
bles, in  many  particulars,  his  predecessor,  Henry  Smith  ; 
he  stood  in  the  pulpit  of  the  great  unchancelled  church  of 
St.  Paul's  Cross — no  rood  loft,  no  richly-carved  or  gilded 
wood-work  or  screen,  no  paraiDhernaha  of  Popish  idolatry 
or  corruption  met  the  eye  ;  it  realized  the  often-acted  scene 
of  the  chiu'ch-yard  cross,  in  which  the  old  friar  was  wont  to 
dehver  his  single  sermon,  when  perchance  denied  the  pulpit 
of  the  church,  but  it  was  the  whispering-gallery  of  the  na- 
tion. Playfere  was  a  favorite  there.  I  think,  however  he 
may  be  charged  with  trifling,  his  style  was  one  to  be  emi- 
nently attractive  to  the  multitude ;  for  such  an  audience, 
he  had  what  would  be  a  very  striking  way  of  repeating, 
reiterating,  as  it  were  reverberating,  his  thoughts,  images, 
and  words  ;  notice  it  in  the  following  ; 

THAT    THE    PREACHER    MUST    SAY    WELL    AND    DOE    WELL. 

Both  pastor  and  people  must  doe  that  themselves  which  they 
teach  others  to  doe.  That  must  be.  First  for  the  pastor  he 
hath  two  kind  of  garments,— a  breastplate,  and  an  Ephod  :  th« 
breastplate  shewes  that  he  must  have  science  to  teach  :  the 
Ephod  shewes  that  he  must  have  conscience  to  doe  that  which 
he  teaclieth.  And  in  the  very  breastplate  itseh*  is  written,  not 
onely  Urim,  but  also  Thummim.  Urim  signifies  Hght.  Thum- 
mim  signifies  perfection.  To  proovc  that  the  pastor  must  not 
onely  be  the  light  of  the  world,  but  also  the  salt  of  the  earth : 
not  only  a  light  of  direction  in  his  teaching,  but  also  a  patteme 
of  perfection  in  his  doing.  For  even  as  the  snuficrs  of  the  tab- 
ernacle were  made  of  pure  golde :  so  preachers,  which  should 
purge  and  dresse,  and  cleare  others  that  they  may  burne-out 
brightly,  must  be  made  of  pure  golde,  that  by  doing  well  they 
may  also  shine  themselves.  Hence  it  is  that  the  Priest  hath  out 
of  the  sacrifices  for  his  share,  the  shake-breast  and  the  right 
shoulder.    The  shake-breast  puts  him  in  minde.  of  teaching 


Tliomas  Playfere.—'' Say  Well,  Doe  WelV  199 

well:  the  right  shoulder  puts  him  in  minde  of  doing  well. 
That  great  Prophet  Ehas  is  called,  the  horseman  and  the  Chariot 
of  Israel.  A  horseman  directs  the  chariot,  and  keeps  it  in  the 
right  way :  a  chariot  goes  in  the  right  way  it  selfe.  And  so  a 
minister  must  not  onely  as  a  horseman  direct  others,  and  set 
them  in  the  right  way,  but  also  as  a  chariot,  he  must  followe  a 
good  course,  and  walke  in  the  right  way  himself.  He  must  be 
both  the  horseman  that  teacheth,  and  the  chariot  that  doth, 
both  the  horseman  and  the  chariot  of  Israel.  Therefore  he  hath 
upon  the  fringes  of  his  vesture  pomgranats  and  bells.  Many 
preachers  are  fall  of  bells  which  make  a  great  ringing  and 
gingling,  but  because  they  have  not  pomgranats  as  well  as  bells, 
therefore  all  the  noise  that  they  make  is  but  as  sounding  brass, 
or  as  a  tinckling  cymball.  For  the  godly  pastor  must  not  onely  say 
well,  and  sound  out  the  word  of  the  Lord  to  others  clearly  as  a 
bell,  but  also  he  must  doe  well,  and  as  a  pomegranat  be  fruit- 
full  himself  and  full  of  good  workes.  Even  as  the  pillars  of  the 
tabernacle  were  made  of  Shittim  wood,  and  overlaid  with  pure 
gold :  so  preachers  (which  are  called  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ga- 
latians  the  pillars  of  the  Church)  must  not  onely  be  overlaid  out- 
wardly with  pure  gold,  teaching  the  word  of  God  purely,  but 
also  they  must  doe  as  they  say,  and  inwardly  be  made  of  Shit- 
tim woode,  which  never  corrupteth,  never  rotteth,  having  no 
corruption,  no  rottenness  in  their  Uves.  Hereupon  our  Lord, 
speaking  to  his  Prophet  saies.  Lift  up  thy  voice  as  a  trumpet. 
Divers  things  there  are  which  sound  louder  than  a  trumpet, 
The  sea,  the  thunder,  or  such  like.  Yet  he  saies  not.  Lift  up 
thy  voice  as  the  sea,  or  lift  up  thy  voice  as  the  thunder,  but  lift 
up  thy  voice  as  a  trumpet.  Because  a  trumpeter  when  he  sounds 
his  trumpet,  he  winds  it  with  his  mouth,  and  holds  it  up  with 
his  hands  :  and  so  a  Preacher  which  is  a  spirituall  trumpeter, 
must  not  onely  by  teaching  wel,  sound  forth  the  word  of  life 
with  his  moutli,  but  also  by  doing  well  he  must  support  it,  and 
hold  it  up  with  his  hands.  And  then  doth  he  lift  up  his  voice 
as  a  trumpet.  Those  mysticall  beasts  in  Ezekiel,  which  S.  Gre- 
gorie  understandeth  to  be  the  ministers  of  the  Church,  had 
hands  under  their  wings.  Many  preachers  are  full  of  feathers, 
and  can  scare  aloft  in  a  speculative  kind  of  discoursing :  but  if 


200  Li  tJie  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

you  should  searcli  for  hands  under  their  wings,  perhaps  you 
should  scarce  find  many  times  so  much  as  halfe  a  hand  amongst 
them.  But  the  godly  pastor  must  have  not  onely  wings  of  high 
wisdome  and  know^ledge,  but  also  hands  under  his  wings  to  doe 
that  which  he  knoweth.  For  as  the  Prophet  Malachie  witness- 
eth,  The  Priests  lips  should  keepe  knowledge.  He  sales  not, 
they  should  babble  or  utter  knowledge  to  others,  and  have  no 
care  to  keepe  it  themselves,  but  having  delivered  it  to  others, 
they  must  as  well  as  others  observe  and  doe  it  themselves.  And 
then  indeede  may  their  lips  rightly  be  said  to  keepe  knowledge. 
For  even  as  they  which  repaired  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  held  a 
sword  in  one  hand  and  wrought  with  the  other :  so  Preachers 
which  by  winning  souls  repaire  and  build  up  the  walls  of  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  must  not  onely  hold  the  sw^ord  of  the  spirit, 
which  is  the  word  of  God  in  one  hand,  but  also  they  must  labor 
with  the  other  hand.  Els  they  shall  pull  downe  and  destroy 
rather  than  build  up.  But  if  they  doe  as  fast  as  they  say,  then 
they  shall  build  apace,  and  edifie  very  much.  Therefore  Saint 
Paul  exhorteth  Timothie  to  shew  himself  a  workeman,  which 
needeth  not  to  be  ashamed,  dividing  the  word  of  God  aright. 
He  must  not  onely  be  a  word-man,  but  also  a  workeman.  He 
must  not  onely  hold  a  sword  in  one  hand,  to  divide  the  word  of 
God  aright,  but  also  labor  with  the  other  hand,  and  doe  his 
best  to  shewe  himselfe  a  workeman  which  neede  not  be  asham'd. 
And  the  same  Apostle  exhorteth  the  same  Timothie  againe,  to 
shewe  the  true  patterne  of  holsome  words.  Holsome  words  is 
sound  teaching ;  the  true  patterne  of  holsome  w^ords,  is  well 
doing.  So  that  he  shewes  the  true  patterne  of  holsome  w^ords, 
which  patternes  and  samples  his  teaching  by  dobig^  making 
them  both  matches  and  paires,  so  that  (as  Marke  the  Eremite^ 
speak eth)  a  man  may  easily  read  all  his  sermons,  and  all  his  ex- 
hortations to  others,  written  downe  as  it  w^ere,  and  expressed  in 
the  lines  of  his  own  life.  And  thus  must  every  faithful  preacher 
doe.  He  must  have  not  only  a  brest-plate,  but  also  an  Ephod  : 
he  must  have  written  in  this  brest-plate,  not  onely  Urim,  but 
also  Thummim :  he  must  be  like  the  snuffers  of  the  tabernacle, 
not  onely  purging  others,  but  also  made  of  pure  gold  himself: 
he  must  have  for  his  share  of  the  sacrifices  not  onely  the  shake- 


Thomas  Flayf ere. — '^Say  Wellj  Doe  WellP   201 

brest,  but  also  the  right  shoulder :  he  must  be  as  Elias  was,  not 
onely  the  horseman,  but  also  the  chariot  of  Israel :  he  must  have 
upon  the  fringes  of  his  vesture,  not  onely  bells,  but  also  pomgra- 
nats :  he  must  be  like  the  pillars  of  the  tabernacle,  not  onely 
overlai'd  outwardly  with  gold,  but  also  inwardly  made  of  Shit- 
tim  woode :  he  must  not  onely  lift  up  his  voice,  but  also  lift  it  up 
as  a  trumpet ;  he  must  not  onely  have  wings,  but  also  hands  under 
his  wings  :  he  must  not  onely  with  his  lippes  utter  knowledge  to 
others,  but  also  keepe  knowledge  himself:  he  must  not  only 
hold  a  sworde  in  one  hand,  but  also  labor  with  the  other  hand  : 
he  must  not  onely  devide  the  word  of  God  aright,  but  also  shewe 
himself  a  workman  which  neede  not  be  ashamed :  he  must  not 
onely  deliver  holsome  words,  but  also  shewe  the  true  patterne 
of  holesome  words,  which  is  a  godly  life.  The  sum  is  this : 
The  faithful  Pastor  must  not  onely  teach  well,  but  also  doe  well. 
For  He  that  both  doth  and  teacheth,  the  same  shal  be  called 
great  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Here  also  from  the  same  sermon  : 

Beloved  in  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  a  verie 
monstrous  thing,  that  any  man  should  have  more  tongues  then 
hands.  For  God  hath  given  us  two  hands,  and  but  one  tongue, 
that  we  might  doe  much,  and  say  but  little.  Yet  many  say  so 
much  and  doe  so  little,  as  though  they  had  two  tongues,  and  but 
one  hand :  nay,  three  tongues  and  never  a  hand.  In  so  much  as 
that  may  be  aptly  applied  to  them,  which  Pandulphus  said  to  some 
in  his  time  ;  You  say  much,  but  you  doe  litle :  you  say  well,  but 
you  doe  ill:  againe,  you  doe  little,  but  say  much  :  you  doe  ill, 
but  you  say  well.  Such  as  these  (which  do  either  worse  then 
they  teach,  or  lesse  then  they  teach :  teaching  others  to  doe  well, 
and  to  doe  much,  bnt  doing  no  whit  themselves)  may  be  re- 
sembled to  diverse  things.  To  a  whetsonc,  which  being  blunt 
it  selfe,  makes  a  knife  sliarpe.  To  a  painter,  which  beeing  de- 
formed himselfe,  makes  a  picture  faire.  To  a  signe,  which  be- 
ing weather-beaten  and  hanging  without  it  selfe,  directs  pas- 
sengers into  the  Inne.  To  a  bell,  which  being  deafe,  and  hear- 
ing not  it  selfe,  calls  the  people  into  the  Church  to  hcare.  To  a 
nightingale,  which  being  restles,  and  sitting  upon  a  thorne  her 
9* 


202  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

selfe,  brings  others  by  her  singing  into  a  sweet  sleepe.  To  a 
goldsmith,  which  beeing  beggerly  and  having  not  one  peice  of 
plate  to  use  himselfe,  hath  store  for  others  which  he  shewes  and 
sels  in  his  shoppe.  Lastly,  to  a  ridiculous  actor  in  the  citie  of 
Smyrna,  pronouncing,  6  ccelum^  O  heaven,  pointed  with  his  finger 
toward  the  ground ;  which  when  Polemo  the  chiefest  man  in 
the  place  sawe,  he  could  abide  to  stay  no  longer,  but  went  from 
the  companie  in  a  chafe,  saying.  This  foole  hath  made  a  sole- 
cisme  with  his  hand;  he  hath  spoken  false  Latine  with  his 
hand.  Such  are  all  they  which  teach  one  thing,  and  do  another : 
which  teach  well  and  doe  ill.  They  are  like  a  blunt  whetstone : 
a  deformed  painter :  a  weather-beaten  signe :  a  deafe  bell :  a 
restless  nightingale  :  a  beggerly  goldsmith  :  a  ridiculous  actor, 
which  pronounceth  the  heaven  and  pointeth  to  the  earth.  But 
he  that  sitteth  in  the  heaven  shall  laugh  all  such  to  scorn,  the 
Lord  shall  have  them  in  derision,  and  hisse  them  off  from  the 
stage.  Because  howsoever  they  have  the  heaven  commonly  at 
their  tongues  ende,  yet  they  have  the  earth  continually  at  their 
fingers  end.  So  that  they  speak  false  Latine  with  their  hand,  nay 
that  which  is  worse,  they  speake  false  Divinitie  with  their  hand. 
Whereas  we  might  easily  avoid  all  such  irregularitie,  and  make 
true  cogruitie  between  the  tongue  and  the  hand,  if  we  would 
make  this  text  of  Holy  Scripture  the  rule  of  our  whole  life.  For 
then,  I  assure  you,  we  should  every  one  of  us  play  our  parts  so 
well,  that  in  the  ende,  the  tragedie  of  this  woeful  life  being  once 
finished,  we  should  have  an  applause  and  a  plaudite  of  the  whole 
theatre,  not  onely  of  men  and  angels,  but  even  of  God  himselfe, 
who  doth  always  behold  us. 

That  which  has  been  called  his  trifling  style,  is  well  illus- 
trated in  the  copious  manner  in  which  he  gathers  up 
images  and  fancies  in  the  following  passage  : 

Otherwise,  the  remembrance  either  of  vices  or  vertues,  is  so 
farre  from  putting  us  any  whit  forward,  that  it  casteth  us  back- 
ward. For  as  Marke  the  Eremite  witnesseth.  The  remembrance 
of  former  sinnes,  is  enough  to  cast  him  downe  altogether,  who 
otherwise  might  have  had  some  good  hope.  Our  sinnes  and 
Elies  sonnes  are  ahke.    EUe  hearing  his  sonnes  were  slaine, 


Play  fere, — Copiousness  of  Fancy,      203 

whom  he  himself  had  not  chastised  and  corrected  as  hee  ought, 
fell  downe  backward  and  brake  his  necke.  And  so  all  they  that 
remember  and  hearken  after  their  former  sinnes,  which  they 
should  have  mortified  and  killed,  fall  downe  backward,  and 
turne  away  from  God.  For  this  is  the  diflference  betweene  the 
godly  and  the  wicked.  Both  fall,  but  the  godly  fall  forward 
upon  their  faces,  as  Abraham  did  when  he  talked  with  God :  the 
wicked  fall  backward  upon  the  ground,  as  the  Jews  did  when 
they  apprehended  Christ.  Hee  that  remembers  his  sinnes  to  be 
sorie  for  them,  as  Abraham  did,  falles  forward  upon  his  face : 
but  he  that  remembers  his  sinnes,  to  rejoice  in  them  as  the  Jews 
did,  falles  backward  upon  the  ground.  Wherefore  if  thou  bee 
upon  a  mountaine,  look  not  backward  again  upon  Sodome  as 
Lots  wife  did :  if  thou  be  be  within  the  Arke,  flie  not  out  againe 
into  the  world,  as  Noah's  crow  did :  if  thou  bee  well  washed,  re- 
turne  not  againe  to  the  mire  as  the  hogge  doth :  if  thou  bee 
cleane  purged,  runne  not  again  to  thy  filth,  as  the  dogge  doth : 
if  thou  be  going  towards  the  land  of  Canaan,  think  not  on  the 
flesh-pottes  of  Egypt :  if  thou  be  marching  against  the  hoast  of 
Madian,  drinke  not  of  the  waters  of  Ilarod :  if  thou  be  upon 
the  house  top,  come  not  downe :  if  thou  hath  set  thy  hand  to 
the  j)lough,  looke  not  behinde  thee ;  remember  not  those  vices 
which  are  behind  thee.  No,  nor  those  vertues  neither.  For  as 
Gregorie  writeth ;  The  remembrance  of  former  vertues  doth 
many  times  so  besot  and  inveigle  a  man,  that  it  makes  him  like 
a  blinde  Asse  fall  down  into  a  ditcli.  When  Orpheus  went  to 
fetch  his  wife  Eurydice  out  of  hell,  hee  had  her  granted  to  him 
upon  condition  that  hee  should  not  turn  backe  his  eyes  to  looke 
upon  her,  till  he  had  brought  her  into  heaven.  Yet  having 
brought  her  forward  a  great  way,  at  length  his  love  was  so  ex- 
cessive, that  he  could  not  containe  any  longer  but  would  needes 
have  a  sight  of  her.  Whereupon  forthwith  he  lost  both  her 
sight  and  herself,  shee  suddenly  againe  vanishing  away  from 
him.  This  is  a  poeticall  fiction.  Nevertheless  it  serveth  very 
fitly  to  this  purpose.  To  admonish  us,  that  if  we  have  any  ver- 
tue,  which  is  to  be  loved  as  a  man  is  to  love  his  wife  yet  wee 
must  not  be  so  blinde  in  affection,  as  to  doate  too  much  upon  it, 
or  to  fall  in  admiration  of  our  selves  for  it,  or  to  be  alwaies  gaz- 


204  In  the  Seventeenth  and  IlJigliteentli  Centuries. 

ing  and  wondering  at  it,  lest  by  too  mucli  looking  upon  it,  and 
by  too  well  liking  of  it,  and  by  too  often  remembering  it,  wee 
lost  it.  Because  indeed  he  that  remembers  his  vertues,  hath  no 
vertues  to  remember. 

Here  is  what  would  be  to  the  audience  of  St.  Paul's 
Cross  a  delicious  piece  of  trifling. 

NAPnTHALI,   THE   HIND   LET   LOOSE. 

So  that  the  prophecie  of  the  Patriarke  Jacob  is  now  also  ful- 
filled, who  saith,  Nepthalie  shal  be  as  a  hind  let  loose  giving 
goodly  words.  For  Christ  did  first  jDreach  in  the  land  of  Nep- 
tlialy  among  the  Jews.  But  seeing  the  Jews  would  not  obey 
him,  therefore  he  had  turned  to  the  Gentiles.  And  So  Nepthalie 
is  as  a  hind  let  loose,  giving  goodly  words.  Because  Christ,  who 
first  preached  in  Nepthalie,  is  not  now  any  longer  in  prison 
among  the  Jews  ;  but,  as  a  hind  let  loose,  leaping  by  the  moun- 
taines,  and  skipping  by  the  hills,  so  he  hath  run  swiftly  over  all 
the  world,  and  with  his  goodly  words,  with  his  gratious  words, 
he  hath  persuaded  Japheth  aud  all  the  Gentiles,  to  dwell  in  the 
tents  of  Shem,  and  to  ride  in  the  chariots  of  Amminadab. 
These  chariots  of  Amminadab  are  called  in  Latine,  Qiiodrige^ 
because  each  of  them  is  drawne  with  foure  horses.  Which  very 
aptly  befitteth  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel.  For,  as  Calvin  noteth 
in  his  Epistle  before  his  Harmonic,  God  hath  of  set  purpose  or- 
dained that  the  Gospel  should  be  written  by  foure  Evangelists, 
that  so  he  might  make  a  triumphant  chariot  for  his  sonne. 
"Which  being  drawn  with  fowre  horses,  and  running  upon  fowre 
wheels  might  quickly  pass  over  all  the  earth,  and  so  shew  the 
glorie  of  the  Lord,  unto  all  his  Church. 

Another  writer  may  a  little  hold  your  notice.  Anthony 
Maxey,  Dean  of  Windsor,  and  apparently  one  of  the  chap- 
lains of  Charles  I.  In  these  sermons  is  less  of  strength 
than  in  Playfere's,  but  there  is  assuredly  even  more  of 
tenderness.  There  is  another,  less  argumentative  than 
Playfere,  not  so  tender  and  rhetorical  as  Maxey,  but 
aboundiQg  in  strong  and  vigorous   and  more  impressive 


Old  John  Sto'ughton,  205 

images,  John  Stoughton,  also  one  of  the  preachers  before 
kino's.  A  chaplaia  of  James  I.,  and  one  of  the  thunderers 
at  St.  PauFs  Cross.  There  is  one  beginning  of  that  thick 
overlaying  of  the  old  learning  and  allusion,  which,  orna- 
mental as  it  looks  in  print,  is  to  be  guarded  agamst  or  very 
dexterously  used,  lest  it  become  only  a  means  of  rather 
hiding  the  truth,  than  of  reveahng  it.  None  of  these  men 
were  either  Basils  or  Chrj^sostoms  ;  we  are  not,  it  must  be 
confessed,  so  completely  captivated  with  the  setting,  as  in 
the  early  fathers  of  Christian  eloquence — their  method  in 
the  pulpit  is  the  typo  of  multitudes.  It  would  not  profit 
you,  only  should  I  amuse  you,  if  I  gave  the  method  and 
outline  of  any  of  the  sermons  of  good  John  Stoughton, 
especially  in  Baruch's  Sore  Gently  Opened,  indeed  it  is 
egregiously  ludicrous.     Yet  he  was  able  to  talk  thus  of 

PEACE   WITH   CONSCIENCE. 

The  Bride  that  hath  good  cheere  within,  and  good  musicke, 
and  a  good  Biidegroome  with  her,  may  be  merrie,  though  the 
hail  chance  to  rattle  upon  the  tiles  without  upon  her  wedding 
day :  though  the  world  should  rattle  about  his  eares,  a  man 
may  sit  merrie  that  sits  at  the  feast  of  good  conscience :  nay, 
the  child  of  God,  by  vertue  of  this,  in  the  midst  of  the  waves 
of  afiliction,  is  as  secure  as  that  child,  which  in  a  shipwracke 
was  upon  a  planke  with  his  mother,  till  shee  awaked  him 
securely  sleeping,  and  then  with  his  prettie  countenance  sweetly 
smiling,  and  by-and-by  sportingly  asking  a  stroake  to  beat  the 
naughtie  waves,  and  at  last  when  they  continued  boisterous  for 
all  that,  sharply  chiding  them,  as  though  they  had  been  but  his 
playfellowes.  O  the  innocencie  !  O  the  comfort  of  peace  !  O  the 
tranquillitie  of  a  s^Dotless  mind  ?  There  is  no  heaven  so  cleere 
as  a  good  conscience. 

Againe,  all  outward  blessings  cannot  make  a  man  happie  that 
hath  an  ill  conscience,  no  more  than  warme  cloath  can  produce 
heat  in  a  dead  carkasse,  if  you  would  heap  never  so  many  upon 
it :  there  is  no  peace  to  the  wicked,  Aut  si  imx.,  Icllo  jjax  ea 
deterior.     For  with  this,  a  man  in  his  greatest  fortunes,  is  but 


2o6  In  tlie  Seventeentli  and  EigliteeniJi  Centuries. 

like  him  that  is  worshipt  in  the  street  with  cap  and  knee,  but 
as  soon  as  he  is  stept  within  doores,  is  cursed  and  rated  by  a 
scolding  wife  :  like  him  that  is  lodged  in  a  bed  of  ivorie,  cover- 
ed with  cloth  of  gold,  but  all  his  bones  within  are  broken :  like 
a  book  of  Tragedies  bound  up  in  velvet,  all  faire  without,  but 
all  blacke  within,  the  leaves  are  gold,  but  the  lines  are  bloud ; 
O  the  racke  !  O  the  torment,  O  the  horror  of  a  guiltie  mind  ! 
There  is  no  hell  so  darke  as  an  ill-conscience,  from  which  no 
earthly  thing  can  free  a  man ;  if  hee  that  is  bound  up  in  a 
velvet  suit,  fiUetted  vath  gold  laces,  were  sure  to  escape  this,  I 
think  velvet  would  never  be  cut  out  for  patches,  to  hang  out  for 
signs  of  the  tooth-ach  :  But  is  not  a  Crown  of  gold  can  cure 
the  head-ach,  nor  a  velvet  slipper  can  ease  the  gout,  nor  al  the 
Minstrels  can  make  the  Maid  that  is  dead  for  sin  rise  and  dance : 
no  more  can  honour,  or  riches,  or  pleasure,  quiet  the  conscience : 
onely  the  harp  of  David,,  the  holy  singer  of  Israel  can  charme 
this  evil  spirit.  For  the  Hebrewes  observe,  that  the  letters  in 
the  name  of  God,  are  literce  quiescente.%  letters  of  rest.  God 
only  is  the  Center,  where  the  soul  may  find  this  rest ;  God 
only  can  speake  peace  to  the  conscience,  and  God  speaks  this 
peace  only  by  religion  which  brings  in  the  last  place,  peace 
with  God. 

THE   GOD   OF   PEACE. 

God  is  the  best  store-house  that  a  man  can  have,  the  best 
Treasurie  that  a  Kingdom  can  have :  God  is  the  best  Shield 
of  any  person,  and  the  best  Safe-guard  of  any  Nation,  if  God 
be  our  enemie,  nothing  can  secure  us ;  if  God  be  our  friend, 
nothing  can  hurt  us :  for  when  the  enemie  begirts  a  Citie  round 
about  with  the  straightest  siege,  he  cannot  stop  the  passage  to . 
Heaven,  and  so  long  as  that  is  opened,  there  may  come  releese 
and  succour  from  thence,  if  God  be  our  friend,  if  He  be  in 
league  with  us.  Faith  is  a  better  Enginer  than  BcBdalus^  and 
he  yet  made  wings,  with  which  he  made  an  escape  over  the 
high  wals,  within  which  he  was  imprisoned :  let  Pharaoh  be 
behind,  the  red  Sea  before,  the  mountaines  on  each  side,  the 
Israelites  can  find  a  way,  Bestat  iter  calo,^  c(bIo  tentabimus  ire : 
When  there  is  no  other  way  to  escape  a  danger,  a  Christian 
can  goe  by  Heaven.    Againe,  when  a  Citie  is  compast  round 


Old  John  Stougliton,  207 

about  with  a  wall  that  is  impregnable,  it  will  yet  be  open 
still  toward  Heaven,  and  therefore  cannot  bee  out  of  danger, 
if  God  be  an  enemie :  for  all  their  wals  and  bars,  God  could 
raine  fire  and  brimstone  upon  the  Sodomites  frgm  Heaven. 
Alexander  asked  the  Scythians,  what  they  were  most  afraid  of, 
thinking  they  would  have  said  of  himselfe,  w^ho  w^as  so 
victorious  everie  where;  but  they  answered  scoffingly.  They 
w^ere  most  afraid  lest  Heaven  should  fall  upon  them,  meaning 
they  feared  no  enemy ;  but  we  indeed  need  not  feare  anything, 
but  this  onely,  lest  the  heaven  should  fall  upon  us,  lest  God 
should  be  our  enemy. 

W^ITHOUT   GOD   IN   THE   WORLD. 

For  as  Ilcraclltus  said.  If  the  Sun  w^ere  w^anting,  it  would  be 
night  for  all  the  Stars  ;  so  if  the  light  of  God's  countenance  be 
wanting,  if  he  frowne  us,  a  man  may  sit  in  the  shadow  of  death, 
for  all  the  glister  of  all  worldly  contentments :  for,  I  beseech  you 
tell  mee,  suppose  the  houses  were  paved  with  pearles,  and  walled 
with  diamonds,  if  the  roofe  were  open  to  the  injuries  of  Heaven, 
w^ould  those  shelter  you  from  the  storms  and  tempests  ?  w^ould 
you  chuse  to  bee  so  lodged  in  an  hard  winter  ?  Suppose  the 
king  should  set  you  in  a  Chaire  of  State,  at  a  table  richly 
furnished,  royally  attended,  but  his  sword  hangs  over  your  head 
in  a  twined  threed,  would  that  honour  make  you  merrie  ?  would 
you  desire  to  bee  so  feasted  ?  Suppose  God  himselfe  should 
make  you  this  offer,  crowne  your  heads  with  rose-buds,  and 
wash  your  paths  in  butter;  cloath  your  selves  in  purple,  and  fare 
deliciously  everie  day,  take  your  fill  of  pleasures,  open  your 
mouth  w^ide,  and  I  will  fill  you  with  all  that  heart  can  w  ish  of 
worldly  things,  only  this  Facitum  meam  nunquam  "cidebitis ; 
You  shall  never  see  my  face :  would  you  think  you  had  a  good 
offer  ?  would  you  accept  of  the  condition  ? 

In  this  rich  and  delightful  way  the  Puritan  preacher 
of  Aldermanbury  talked,  interlacing  his  words  with  a 
variety  of  recondite  allusion  from  the  Eabbins,  and  from 
the  classics — in  the  like  of  Him,  however,  and  his 
style.* 

*  A  good  deal  of  condensed  information  and  acquaintance  with 


:2o8  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Mghteenih  Centuries. 

The  dawn  of  the  Reformation  was  in  a  day  when  the 
preaching  of  the  Romish  Church  was  especially  cold, 
formal,  and  from  the  lips  ;  the  words  of  our  Reformers, 
and  the  Words  of  awakened  Protestantism,  have  been 
especially  characterised  by  this, — they  have  searched  tJie 
conscience.  I  might  attempt  to  dehneate  the  vices  of  the 
French  school  of  pulpit  eloquence,  and  to  lay  down  some 
principles  from  the  materials  which  the  Puritan  pulpit  has 
handed  down  to  us.  Both  have  thek  faults ;  true,  the 
French  school,  as  far  as  it  is  represented  to  us  by  Bossuet, 
seems  to  me  audaciously  sinful ;  and  here  let  me  say,  that 
I  have  no  idea  that  my  meeting  with  you  thus,  from  week 
to  week,  is  for  the  purpose  of  making  you  eloquent  as  that 
term  is  usually  understood — that  is,  florid,  showy,  artistic 
and  rhetorical  speakers.  The  ivork  of  the  tnie  preacher-  is 
the  searching  of  the  entrance  into  men's  consciences,  by  the 
knowledge  of  his  own.  The  preaching  of  Bossuet  is  sonor- 
ous and  showy  sound.  Versailles,  in  those  days,  in  the 
age  of  Louis  XIII.,  had  a  theatre  and  a  chapel,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  one  presided  over  the  other ;  ahke  in  either 
place  it  was  the  acting  of  things  which  did  not  for  a 
moment  affect  the  auditors'  life  ;  produced,  but  never 
really  touched,  the  passions.  What,  then,  is  in  preaching  ? 
— Manner,  matter.  The  French  is  almost  exclusively 
attentive  to  manner. 

In  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  we  are  in 
periods  during  which,  in  our  country,  we  find  the  most 
eminent  illustrations  of  pulpit  earnestness,  and  the  most 
remarkable  illustrations  of  pulpit  listlessness.  We  have 
every  variety  of  strange  anecdote  of  that  time,  from  the 
reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  to  the  close  of  the  last  century  ; 
a  long  period  I  know,  but  time  presses.     We  have  heard 

the  Pulpit  of  St.  Paul's  Cross  may  be  found  in  SkeicJies  of  the 
Reformation  and  Elizabethan  Age  taken  from  ilie  Contemporan^y 
Pulpit.    By  J.  0.  W.  Haweis,  M.A. 


A  Shop-keeping  Style  of  Eloqiience!     209 

of  William  Austin,  in  the  reign  of  James  I.,  who  preached 
on  the  words,  ^' And  Bartholomew"  for  St.  Bartholomew's 
Day.  After  noticing,  what  is  perfectly  true,  that  the  name 
of  Bartholomew  never  appears  in  Scripture  without  being 
preceded  by  the  copulative  particle,  he  proceeds  to  dilate 
on  the  Christian  duty,  and  benefit  of  mutual  help,  and 
assistance,  and  doctrine,  which  was  entirely  evolved  from 
the  words  "  And  Baiiholomeiv."  And  the  ingenious  repartee 
with  which  a  preacher  of  this  order  was  once  met  is  well 
]ino^^^l.  Having  become  a  candidate  for  some  lectureship, 
he  was  required,  in  his  tui'n,  to  exhibit  his  talents  in  the 
pulpit,  and  naturally  wishing  to  make  the  most  of  them, 
he  took  for  his  text  the  word  "  But "  ;  he  thence  deduced 
the  lesson,  that  no  lot  is  without  its  cross.  Naaman  was 
a  mighty  man  of  valor  and  honorable  ;  Imt  he  was  a  leper. 
The  four  wicked  cities  were  as  fruitful  as  the  garden  of  the 
Lord  ;  but  the  men  of  Sodom  were  wicked  and  sinners 
before  the  Lord  exceedingly.  The  inhabitants  of  Ai  thought 
that  they  had  put  the  Israehtes  to  flight ;  hut  they  wist  not 
that  there  were  hers-in-wait  behind  the  city,  &c.,  &c. 
"When  our  divine  returned  to  the  vestry,  he  was  met  by  the 
principal  of  the  lectureshij)  with  the  appropriate  obser- 
vation :  "  Sir,  it  was  a  most  ingenious  sermon,  and  we  are 
exceedingly  obhged  to  you  for  it ;  hut  you  are  not  the 
lecturer  that  will  do  for  us. 

And  this  anecdote  leads  me  to  remark  that  tliis  verbal 
crochetiness  is  very  characteristic  of  many  of  even  the  best 
preachers  of  the  reigns  of  James  L  and  Charles  L  ;  you 
will  remember,  some  of  you,  how  this  defaces  the  sermons 
even  of  Bishop  Andrewes,  and  of  a  greater  mind  still,  that 
of  Dr.  Donne.  No  doubt  our  preaching  has  somewhat  im- 
proved. Echart  tells  us  of  a  preacher  who  may  be  said  to 
have  a  shop-keeping  sort  of  eloquence.  He  told  his  hearers 
that  "  Christ  is  a  treasury  of  all  wares  and  commodities," 
and  then  he  cried  aloud,  "  Good  people,  what  do  you  lack  ? 


2 1  o  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

What  do  you  buy  ?  Will  you  buy  any  balm  of  Gilead,  and 
eye-salve?  Any  myrrli,  aloes,  or  cassia?  Shall  I  fit  you 
with  a  robe  of  righteousness,  or  with  a  white  raiment  ? 
Say,  then,  what  is  it  you  want  ?  Here  is  a  very  choice 
armory,  shall  I  show  you  a  helmet  of  salvation,  a  shield 
or  breastplate  of  faith  ?  Will  you  please  to  walk  in  and 
see  some  precious  stones  ?  A  jasper,  a  sapphire  or  a  chal- 
cedony ?  Speak,  what  do  you  buy  ?  what  do  ye  buy  ?"  To 
some  of  our  notions  this  is  but  Httle  short  of  shocking. 
But  it  has  been  usual  to  give  the  credit  of  all  these  sins 
against  bad  taste,  and  therefore  against  good  sense,  to  the 
Puritan.  Kobinson,  in  his  edition  of  Claude  has  given  a 
multitude  of  instances  illustrative  of  the  sins  of  the 
educated,  and  even  of  bishops  and  High-Church  digni- 
taries. At  a  later  period  the  well-known  Daniel  Burgess 
used  to  say :  "  That  is  the  best  key  v^^hich  fits  the  lock  and 
opens  the  door,  though  it  be  not  a  silver  or  a  gold  one." 
In  one  of  his  sermons  he  told  his  congregation,  that  "  if 
they  wanted  a  suit  for  a  year  they  might  go  to  Mi*.  Doyley  ; 
if  they  wanted  a  suit  for  hfe  they  might  go  into  chancery  ; 
but  if  they  would  have  one  to  last  for  ever  they  must  go 
to  Christ  Jesus,  and  get  the  robe  of  his  righteousness  to 
clothe  them."  In  William's  reign  he  said,  "  The  reason  why 
the  people  of  God  who  descended  from  Jacob  were  called 
Israehtes  was,  because  God  did  not  choose  that  His  people 
should  be  called  Jacobites."  The  times  are  full  to  overflow- 
ing of  such  stories  as  these. 

Amazing  and  amusing  are  some  of  these  things  in  my 
possession.  I  have  one  sermon  entitled  The  Eoijd  Merchant, 
A  Sermon  preached  at  Whitehall,  before  the  King^s  Majesty, 
at  the  Nuptuals  of  an  Honourable  Lord  and  his  Lady.  By 
Bobert  Wilkinson  of  Cambridge.  The  second  edition — for  it 
passed  into  a  second  edition — ^bears  the  imprint  of  1708  ; 
it  is  mainly  a  description  of  the  bride,  and  the  happy  text 
taken — "  She  is  like  a  merchant  ship,  she  bringefch  her  goods 


A  S^pecimen  of  Foolishness  in  Preaching,    211 

from  afar."  Every  line  of  it  is  the  most  delightful  non- 
sense. A  wife  is  to  be  like  a  ship — a  merchant  ship — to 
teach !  (1.)  The  merchant  is  a  profitable  ship,  to  teach  a 
wife  in  all  things  to  endeavor  her  husband's  profit.  (2.) 
The  merchant  is  a  painful  ship,  and  she  must  be  a  painful 
wife.  (3.)  He  is  the  merchant,  she  the  ship,  she  must  con- 
clude she  was  made  for  him,  &c.  (4.)  She  is  like  a  mer- 
chant's ship,  that  is  a  friendly  fellow  and  peaceable  com- 
panion, not  a  man-of-war  to  him.  Then  we  have  the  follow- 
ing exquisite  passage  : 

But  of  the  Quahties,  a  Woman  must  not  have  one  quality  of 
a  Ship ;  and  that  is  too  much  rigging.  O  !  what  a  wonder  is  it 
to  see  a  Ship  under  sail,  with  her  Tacklings,  and  her  Masts,  and 
her  tops  and  top-gallants,  with  her  upper  Decks  and  her  Nether- 
decks  and  so  bedect ;  with  her  Streamers,  Flags,  and  Ensigns, 
and  I  know  not  what ;  yea,  but  a  world  of  wonders  it  is  to  see  a 
Woman  created  in  God's  Image,  so  miscreate  oftentimes  and  de- 
formed, with  her  French,  her  Spanish,  and  her  foolish  fashions, 
that  he  that  made  her,  when  he  looks  upon  her  shall  hardly 
know  her,  with  her  Plumes,  her  Fans,  and  a  silken  Vizard ;  with 
a  Ruflf  like  a  Sail ;  yea,  a  Ruff  like  a  Rain-bow ;  with  a  Feather 
in  her  Cap,  like  a  flag  in  her  Top,  to  tell  (I  think)  which  way 
the  Wind  will  blow.  Isaiah  made  a  profer,  in  the  third  of  his 
Prophecy,  to  set  out  by  enumeration  the  Shop  of  these  vanities  ; 
their  Bonnets,  and  their  Bracelets,  and  their  Tablets,  their  Slip- 
pers, and  their  Mufflers ;  their  Yails,  their  Wimples,  and  their 
Crisping-pins ;  of  some  whereof  if  one  should  say  to  me,  (as 
PhiUp  sometimes  said  to  the  Eunuch)  Understandest  thou 
what  thou  readest  ?  (Acts  8.)  I  might  answer  with  the  Eunuch 
again.  How  can  I  without  a  Guide  ?  That  is  unless  some  Gentle- 
woman would  comment  on  the  Text.  But  Isaiah  was  then,  and 
and  we  are  now ;  now  that  fancy  hath  multiplied  the  Text  of 
Fashions  with  the  time,  so  as  what  was  then  but  a  Shop  is  now 
increased  to  a  Ship  of  Vanities.  But  what  saith  the  Scriptures  ? 
The  King's  .Daughter  is  all  glorious  within,  Psal.  45,  and  as 
Ships  which  are  the  fairest  in  shew,  yet  are  not  always  the  fittest 
for  use  ;  so  neither  are  Women  the  more  to  be  esteemed,  but  the 


212  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries, 

more  to  be  susiDCcted  for  their  fair  trappings ;  yet  we  condemn 
not  in  greater  Personages  the  use  of  Ornaments  ;  yea,  we  teach 
that  Silver,  Silks  and  Gold  were  created,  not  only  for  the  neces- 
sity, but  also  for  Ornament  of  the  Saints :  In  the  practice 
whereof,  Rebeccah,  a  holy  Woman  is  noted  to  have  received 
from  Isaac  a  Holy  Man,  even  Ear-rings,  Habiliments  and  Bracelets 
.of  Gold,  Gen  24,  therefore,  this  is  it  we  teach  for  Rules  of 
Christian  Sobriety,  That  if  a  Woman  exceed  neither  Decency  in 
Fashion,  nor  the  limits  of  her  State  and  Degree ;  and  that  she  be 
proud  of  nothing,  we  see  no  reason  but  she  may  wear  any 
thing. 

It  followeth,  she  is  like  a  Ship,  but  what  a  Ship  ?  A  Ship  of 
Merchants,  no  doubt,  a  great  Commendation  ;  for  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  is  like  a  Merchant,  Matt.  13.  and  Merchants  have  been 
Princes,  Isa.  23,  and  Princes  are  Gods,  Psal.  82.  The  Merchant 
is  of  all  Men  most  laborious  for  his  Life,  the  most  adventurous 
in  his  Labour,  and  the  most  peaceable  upon  the  Sea,  the  most 
profitable  upon  the  Land ;  yea,  the  Merchant  is  the  Combination 
and  Union  of  Lands  and  Countries.  She  is  like  a  Ship  of  Mer- 
chants, therefore  first  to  be  reckon'd  (as  ye  see)  among  the 
Laity ;  not  like  a  Fisherman's  Boat,  not  like  St.  Peter's  Ship  ; 
for  Christ  did  call  no  She  Apostles.  Indeed  it  is  commendable 
in  a  Woman,  when  she  is  able  by  her  Wisdom  to  Instruct  her 
Children,  and  to  give  at  Opportunities  good  Counsel  to  her  Hus- 
band :  but  when  Women  shall  take  upon  them  (as  many  have 
done)  to  build  Churches  and  to  chalk  out  Discipline  for  the 
Church ;  this  is  neither  commendable  nor  tolerable  :  For  her 
Hands  (saith  Solomon)  must  handle  the  Spindle,  Ver.  19.  the 
Spindle  or  the  Cradle,  but  neither  the  Altar  nor  the  Temple  ;  for 
St.  John  commendeth  even  to  the  Elect  Lady,  not  so  much  her 
talking  as  her  walking  in  the  Commandments,  2  John  5.  6.  there- 
fore to  such  preaching  Women,  it  may  be  answered,  as  St.  Ber- 
nard sometimes  answered  the  Image  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  at 
the  great  Church  at  Spire  in  Germany ;  Bernard  was  no  sooner 
come  into  the  Church,  but  the  Image  straight  saluted  him,  and 
bade  him.  Good  morrow,  Bernard,  whereat  Bernard  well  know- 
ing the  Juggling  of  the  Fryars,  made  answer  again  out  of  St. 
Paul.  O  (saith  he)  your  Ladyship  hath  forgot  yourself.  It  is  not 
lawful  for  Women  to  speak  in  the  Church. 


The  Puritan  Method  with  the  Scriptures,    2 1 3 

Assuredly,  all  the  nonsense  was  not  on  the  lips  of  the 
Nonconformist.  Of  course,  the  period  to  which  I  refer 
was  the  time  when  these  moral  essays  abounded — those 
pretty  little  performances,  of  which  it  has  been  well  said 
by  Dr.  Newman,  to  still  and  to  overcome  the  force  of  the 
passions  they  are  as  effectual  as  the  feathers  of  the  Chinese 
thrown  into  the  sea  to  quiet  the  storm  and  to  drive  away 
the  devil. 

I  have  quoted  some  specimens  of  Komanist  oratory, 
which  certainly  show  that  prejudice  had  not  blinded  my 
eyes  to  any  measure  of  excellence  among  the  orators  of 
that  Church  ;  but  I  could  fill  a  volume  with  specimens  of 
nasty  sermons,  nonsense  sermons,  and  vulgar  sermons, 
from  the  hps  and  pens  both  of  Popish  and  Church-of-Eng- 
land  orators.  After  such  specimens  as  these,  who  shall  ridi- 
cule the  preaching  of  the  so-called  Puritan  carpenters  or 
cobblers.  Things  come  round,  for  the  very  sermons  so  ridi- 
culed, were  frequently  preached  by  those  who  ridiculed 
them.  "  Odd  fate,"  exclaims  Kobinson,  "  of  a  Puritanical 
sermon, — studied  in  a  jail,  x^reached  under  a  hedge,  printed 
in  a  garret,  sold  at  a  pedlar's  stall,  bought  by  a  priest's 
footman,  uttered  from  a  pulpit  in  a  Cathedral,  apjDlauded  by 
a  bishop,  and  ordered  to  the  press  by  a  procession  of 
gentry." 

A  mode  of  treatment  of  Scripture  truth  more  unlike  our 
now  ordinary  method,  than  that  adopted  by  some  of  these 
men,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive.  How  different  to  Keil 
and  Dehtzsch,  to  Lange,  Olshausen,  Ebrard,  Ewald,  or 
Hengstenberg  ?  These  old  men  dealt  with  Scripture  in  al- 
together another  fashion.  When  they  sat  down  to  the 
Bible  they  never  said,  "What  do  you  here?  Who  sent 
you  ?  Whence  came  you  ?  How  do  you  prove  yourseK  ?  " 
There  were  not  many  of  them  even  who  said,  "  What  is  the 
meaning  of  you  ?  "  They  accepted  all  that  as  understood 
from  tlie  commencement ;  they  said  to  the  Bible,  or  the 


214  ^^^  ^^^^  Seveiiteentli  and  EigliteentJi  Centuries. 

part  of  it  to  wliicli  they  addressed  themselves,  "  You  are 
here  and  I  am  here  ;  comfort  me,  help  me,  talk  to  me,  be 
wisdom  to  me,  light  to  me,  treat  me  tenderly,  guide  me 
truly."  They  submitted  themselves  to  the  Bible  with  a  sim- 
plicity and  earnestness  which,  to  most  of  our  modern  di- 
vines, would  seem  the  most  helpless  and  hopeless  imbecility. 
Do  we  mean  by  this  to  give  altogether  our  admii^ation  and 
adhesion  to  the  method  of  the  old  Puritan  commentators  ? 
No.  We  are  thankful  to  the  modem  men  for  much  ;  but, 
assuredly,  the  things  we  cannot  press  out  of  them  are-- 
comfort,  refreshment,  and  sweetness.  "Where  is  there  one 
of  whom  that  can  be  said,  which  Mr.  Grosart  says  of  Rich- 
ard Bernard's  Ruth  ? — "  As  you  read,  you  feel  refreshed  as 
with  the  blowing  of  bean-blossom-scented  breezes  in  your 
evening  walk  ;  you  fancy  its  author  has  a  gentle  spirit, 
hving  apart  from  the  crowd  in  cloistered  piety  ;  the  pastor 
of  some  small  rural  flock  bringing  the  odor  of  kine  and 
grass  into  some  antique  village  church."  Again,  he  speaks 
of  him,  and  of  another  of  his  works — "  As  full  of  wit,  wis- 
dom, penetration,  and  ineffable  touches,  as  the  tints  in  sea- 
shells,  or  the  cups  in  flowers."  We  shall  look  a  rare  long 
time  among  modem  theologians  of  the  scholastic  or  expos- 
itory, critical  or  exegetical  order,  before  we  meet  with  any 
likeness  to  things  so  sweetly,  so  simply,  and  delightfully 
natural.  We  have  no  doubt  that,  comparing  the  two  orders 
of  men  together  in  breadth  of  thought,  perhaps  in  the 
quality  of  pure  thought,  the  modems  have  an  advantage 
over  their  fathers  ;  of  criticism,  of  course,  in  our  sense  of 
the  word,  most  of  these  fathers  were  entirely  ignorant — 
though  even  in  this  department  we  would  back  Owen  on  the 
Hebrews  against  any  of  the  innumerable  efforts  of  modem 
times  to  dig  into  the  depths  or  scale  the  heights  of  that 
stupendous  epistle  ;  and  we  still  remember  with  homage 
the  immense  labors  of  Lightfoot  and  Pocock  ;  they  excelled 
in  that  which  seems  to  be  so  much  passed  over,  forgotten, 


Tedious  and  ^^FainfuV^  Preaching.     215 

unknown,  or  unappreciated  among  modem  theologists  ; 
whether  from  the  pulpit,  the  professor's  chair,  or  the  press  ; 
these  ancient  men  were  tender  and  emotional,  experimental. 
The  probability  is,  if  a  man  assay  that  nowa-days,  he 
sprawls  over  into  the  most  deplorable  stupidity,  or,  with  the 
most  perfect  mng  froid^  he  offers  you  a  glass  of  the  most 
watery  milk  and  water.  The  old  commentators  were  hu- 
man, thoughtful,  perfectly  serious  in  their  apprehension  of 
life  and  the  life  to  come  ;  they  were  profoundly  experi- 
mental, and  even  now  they  better  read  the  human  states 
of  some  of  us  than  the  men  who  are  hving  in  our  midst. 

Their  diffuseness  was  immense  ;  to  us,  if  our  convenience 
did  not  permit  us  to  skip  huge  gulfs,  they  would  most  of 
them  be  frequently  tedious.  If  it  be  true,  as  Guiberfc  De 
Nogent  says,  "  A  tedious  sermon  only  causes  anger,  what 
was  good  in  it  is  forgotten,  and  men  go  away  feeling  only 
aversion,"  then  we  think  the  auditors  of  those  times  must 
have  often  gone  away  angry.  It  must  be  admitted  that 
about  many  of  them  there  is  a  great  sameness  ;  but  they 
are  rich  in  illustration  and  in  feeling.  Many  of  them  could 
scarcely  ever  have  laid  down  their  pen  ;  they  must  have 
been  always  in  the  study,  they  carried  the  study  perpetually 
with  them,  they  communed  wdth  their  own  heart.  It  is 
probable  the  night-lamp  continued  trimmed  to  a  late  hour, 
"  outwatching  Tlw  Bear  ;  "  it  is  still  more  probable  that  they 
were  up  at  an  early  hour.  One  wonders  how  their  works 
contrived  to  find  a  sale  sufficient  to  pay  the  printer — of 
more  than  this  they  were  usually  careless.  Conceits  and 
fancies  fastened  themselves  like  burrs  upon  them,  and  led 
them  to  all  sorts  of  even  whimsical,  spiritual,  allegorical 
interpretations,  like  Kichard  Bernard's  description  of  the 
marshalhng  the  subjects  of  the  proceedings  in  Manshire : 

Sin  is  the  Thief  and  Robbery  he  stealeth  our  graces,  spoileth 
US  of  every  blessing,  utterly  undoeth  us,  and  maketh  miserable 
both  body  and  soul.     He  is  a  murderer  ;  spares  no  person,  sex, 


2 1 6  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries, 

or  age ;  a  strong  thief :  no  human  power  can  bind  him  ;  a  subtle 
thief:  he  beguiled  Adam,  David,  yea,  even  Paul.  The  only 
watchman  to  spy  him  out  is  Godly-Jealousy.  His  resort  is  in 
Sours  Town,  lodging  in  the  heart.  Sin  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
by-lanes,  and  in  Sense,  Thought,  Word,  and  Deed  Streets.  The 
hue  and  cry  is  after  fellows  called  Outside,  who  nod  or  sleep  at 
Church,  and,  if  awake,  have  their  mind  wandering :  Sir  Worldly 
Wise,  a  self-conceited  earthworm ;  Sir  Lukewarm,  a  Jack-on  both- 
sides ;  Sir  Plausible  Civil ;  Master  Machiavel ;  a  licentious  fel- 
low named  Libertine ;  a  snappish  fellow,  one  Scrupulosity ;  and 
one  babbling  Babylonian  ;  these  conceal  the  villain  Sin.  To  es- 
cape, he  pretends  to  be  an  honest  man ;  calls  vices  by  virtuous 
names ;  his  relations.  Ignorance,  Error,  Opinion,  Idolatry,  Sub- 
tility.  Custom,  Forefathers,  Sir  Power,  Sir  Sampler,  Sir  Must-do, 
Sir  Silly,  Vain  Hope,  Presumption,  Wilful,  and  Saint-like,  all 
shelter  and  hide  him.  The  Justice,  Lord  Jesus,  issues  his  war- 
rant— God's  Word — to  the  Constable,  Mr.  Illuminated  Under- 
standing, dwelling  in  Regeneration,  aided  by  his  wife,  Grace ; 
his  sons.  Will  and  Obedience,  and  his  daughters.  Faith,  Hope, 
and  Charity ;  with  his  men  Humility  and  Self-denial,  and  his 
maids  Temperance  and  Patience.  Having  got  his  warrant,  he 
calls  to  aid  his  next  neighbor.  Godly  Sorrow,  with  his  seven 
sons.  Care,  Clearing,  Indignation,  Fear,  Vehement  Desire,  Zeal, 
and  Revenge  :  these  are  capable  of  apprehending  the  sturdiest 
thief.  He  goes  to  the  common  inn,  an  harlot's  house  called  Mis- 
tress Heart,  a  receptacle  for  all  villains  and  thieves,  no  dishonest 
person  being  denied  houseroom.  Mistress  Heart  married  her 
own  father,  an  Old-man,  keeping  rest  night  and  day,  to  prevent 
any  godJy  motion  from  lodging  there.  The  house  has  five  doors. 
Hearing,  Seeing,  Tasting,  Smelling,  and  Feeling.  Eleven  maids, 
impudent  harlots,  wait  upon  the  guests.  Love,  Hatred,  Desire, 
Detestation,  Vain-hope,  Despair,  Fear,  Audacity,  Joy,  Sorrow, 
and  Anger,  and  a  man-servant  Will.  The  Dishes  are  the  lusts 
of  the  flesh,  served  in  the  platter  of  pleasure ;  the  lust  of  the 
eyes,  in  the  plate  of  profit ;  and  the  pride  of  life.  The  drink  is 
the  pleasure  of  sin  ;  their  bedroom  is  natural  corruption.  "  In 
this  room  lietli  Mistress  Heart,  all  her  maids,  her  man,  and  all 
her  guests  together,  like  wild  Irish."     The  bed  is  Impenitency, 


Their  Quaint  Oddity.  217 

and  tlie  coverings  Carnal  Security ;  when  the  Constable  enters, 
he  attacks  them  all  with  "  apprehension  of  God's  wrath,"  and 
carries  them  before  the  Judge,  who  examines  the  prisoners,  and 
imprisons  them  until  the  assizes,  in  the  custody  of  the  jailor 
New  Man.  "  If  any  prisoner  breaks  out,  the  sheriff— Religion 
—must  bear  the  blame :  saying.  This  is  your  religion,  is  it  ? " 
The  keepers  and  fetters,  as  vows,  fasting,  prayer,  &c.,  are  de- 
scribed with  the  prison. 

Or,  as  in  another  like  description  of  the  trial  of  the  pris- 
oner, and  judgment  without  appeal  : 

The  commission  is  conscience ;  the  circuit,  the  Soul :  the  coun- 
cil for  the  king  are  Divine  Reason  and  Quick-sightedness ;  the 
clerk,  Memory ;  the  witness.  Godly  Sorrow ;  the  Grand  Jury, 
Holy  Men,  the  inspired  authors  :  the  traverse  jury.  Faith,  Love 
of  God,  Fear  of  God,  Charity,  Sincerity,  Unity,  Patience,  Inno- 
cency.  Chastity,  Equity,  Verity,  and  Contentation ;  all  these  arc 
challenges  by  the  prisoners  who  would  be  tried  by  Nature, 
Doubting,  Careless,  etc.,  all  freeholders  of  great  means.  This 
the  Judge  overrules ;  Old-man  is  put  on  his  trial  first,  and  David, 
Job,  Isaiah,  and  Paul,  are  witnesses  against  him.  He  pleads, 
*'  There  is  no  such  thing  as  Original  Corruption :  Pelagius,  a 
learned  man,  and  all  those  now  that  are  called  Anabaptists,  have 
hitherto,  and  yet  do  maintain  that  sin  cometh  by  imitation,  and 
not  by  inbred  pravity.  Good  my  lord,  cast  not  away  so  old  a 
man,  for  I  am  at  this  day  5,569  years  old."  He  is  found  guilty, 
and  his  sentence  is  :  "  Thou  shalt  be  carried  back  to  the  place 
of  execution,  and  there  be  cast  off,  with  all  thy  deeds,  and  all 
thy  members  daily  mortified  and  crucified,  with  all  thy  lusts,  of 
every  one  that  hath  truly  put  on  Christ,"  Mistress  Heart  is  then 
tried,  Moses  (Gen.  viii.,  21),  Jeremiah  (xvii.,  9),  Ezekiel  (xi.,  19), 
Matthew  (xii.,  34),  and  others  give  evidence,  and  she  is  con- 
victed, and  sentenced  to  perpetual  imprisonment  under  the  jailor, 
New  Man.     All  the  rest  of  the  prisoners  are  tried. 

Some  of  my  hearers  will  say,  Precisely  so,  it  is  the  spirit 
of  fancy  and   conceit ;   these  "  quirks  and   quiddities"  of 
speech,  with  which  these  men  abound,  are  not  pleasant  to 
10 


/f, 


msiTf 


2 1 8  I^^  tTie  Seventeentli  and  Eigliteenih  Centuries, 

us.  To  which  we  may  also  reply,  Where  such  character- 
istics are,  this  nimbleness  of  pregnant  fancy  brings  many 
other  better  things  with  it ;  it  is  hke  the  light  or  the  rain — 
valuable,  not  only  for  what  they  are  in  themselves,  but  for 
what  they  open  in  others.  We  like  such  words  as  the  fol- 
lowing, quoted  by  Mr.  Grosart  from  Samuel  Torshell,  in 
which  he  so  happily  sketches  the  humble  rustic  behever. 
He  says : 

There  lies  a  great  deal  of  wealth  in  some  obscure  and  neg- 
lected Christians.  They  do  not  more  ordinarily  tread  upon  and 
walk  over  the  unknown  veins  of  gold  in  America,  than  many 
supercilious  and  conceited  professors  do  pass  by  and  neglect 
golden  and  very  precious  spirits.  One  would  not  think  what 
dexterity  in  the  Scriptures,  what  judgment  in  controversies, 
what  abiUty  to  settle  and  comfort  a  disturbed  conscience,  what 
fervency  and  expressions  in  prayer,  what  acquaintance  with  God 
and  His  providence,  what  strength  of  faith,  what  patience,  meek- 
ness, moderation,  contentedness,  heavenly-mindedness,  and  what 
not,  may  be  now  and  then  found  out  and  discovered  in  plain 
people,  men  and  women  that  wear  plain  clothes,  that  have  plain 
carriage  and  plain  speech.  And  besides,  there  may  haply  be 
more  where  grace  is  expected  than  we  look  for  ;  more  in  a  saint 
than  a  bare  sentence  or  action  will  or  can  express.  The  golden 
vein  is  broader  and  thicker  than  sometimes  we  guess  it  to  be. 
How  then  is  the  necessaiy  use  of  wisdom  to  be  able  to  see  fur- 
ther than  the  russet?  Not  to  be  cozened  with  reverend  beards 
and  grave  furs,  and  demure  countenances  (like  the  councillors  to 
the  Muscovian  that  I  spake  of  in  my  Hypocrite)^  as  if  graces  and 
gifts  dwelt  only  at  those  signs.  And  when  we  find  a  vein,  there 
must  be  skill  to  dig  it.  Oh  I  how  did  the  old  patriarchs  remove 
their  habitations  for  the  benefit  of  water-springs  !  how  did  they 
rejoice  when  they  found  a  well ;  and  we,  when  we  have  met  with 
these  "  wells  of  living  water,"  how  shall  we  fetch  it  up !  (Prov- 
erbs XX.,  5). 

The  readuig  of  these  men  was  peculiar,  it  was  a  reading 
we  have  learned  to  despise.     They  were  not  great  in  novels. 


Their  Sermons  Microcosms.  2 1 9 

and  compendious  notes,  and  treatises  of  philosophy  ;  these 
were  few  then  ;  indeed,  modem  philosophy  had  scarcely 
left  her  kingdom  of  Egyptian  night  of  the  dark  ages  to  set 
forth  upon  her  pilgrimage  to  the  promised  land.  "We  read 
a  hundred  books  to  their  one  ;  but  for  the  weight  of  real 
learning,  we  have  in  general,  perhaps,  the  proportion  of  a 
grain  to  a  hundredweight.  They  were  thoroughly  well-bot- 
tomed men,  they  turned  over  the  fathers  with  infinite  de- 
Hght.  Dear  to  them  Gregonj  the  Great  on  Job  ;  dear  to  them 
Augustbw  on  the  Psalms;  and  words  and  works  such  as 
these  became  index  fingers  to  them  of  matters  they  were  to 
make  their  own  by  experience.  They  put  us  in  miud  of 
that  sohtary  of  the  desert,  who  came  into  the  city  of  Alex- 
andria and  carried  back  with  him  a  single  text  of  Scripture, 
refusing  afterwards  to  learn  another  because  he  could  never 
fully  practise  the  firsi  We  find  fault  with  them  because 
they  found  a  whole  body  of  theology,  a  perfect  universe,  in 
a  text ;  and  yet,  perhaps,  they  were  more  reasonable  than 
we  are,  for  as  the  whole  firmament  is  held  in  a  drop  of  rain 
or  dew,  and  all  the  forces  of  nature  may  be  held  in  solution 
in  a  single  grain,  so  it  does  not  seem  unreasonable  that 
even  a  single  portion  of  the  Book  of  God  should  contain 
the  whole  of  the  Book  of  God  ;  and  it  was  a  characteristic 
of  most  of  these  commentators  that  they  liked  to  find  and 
to  dwell  upon  texts  which  were  to  them  httle,  but  compre- 
hensive Gospels,  the  seK-contained  chapters  and  portions 
of  the  Book  of  God,  and  every  text  was  a  kind  of  geomet- 
rical staircase,  and  stood  self-poised  and  balanced.  Many 
of  these  men  can  never  be  sufficiently  loved,  their  lives  were 
the  salt  of  our  English  earth,  their  ashes  and  memories 
give  a  sanctity  of  memory  to  many  an  out-of-the-way  village 
church  or  tabernacle,  and  their  words,  while  we  receive 
with  thankfulness  the  thoughtful  criticism  of  modern  times, 
possess  a  searching  and  sustaining  gi-ace  and  vigor  which 
thought  and  criticism  alone  can  never  bestow. 


220  In  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

A  notice  of  these  men,  their  Commentaries  and  Sermons, 
would  be  quite  incomplete  if  it  did  not  inchide  a  reference 
to  the  great  and  bulky  books  of  Cheistopher  Ness*  and 
John  Teapp  ;  f  the  estimates  formed  of  these  seem  also,  for 
the  most  part,  the  character  of  Thomas  Gouge,  of  Edwaed 
Elton,  of  Elnathan  Paee,  of  Michael  Jeemin,  of  William 
CowPEE,  of  Daniel  Kogees,  and  innumerable  authors  be- 
sides ;  amongst  whom,  it  must  be  confessed,  there  is  con- 
siderable sameness  of  doctrine,  remark,  and  style  ;  among 
them,  perhaps,  Trapp  may  be  regarded  as  chief,  more  de- 
sultory than  many,  less  critical,  more  amusing  and  illus- 
trative, but  very  substantially  the  same.  Trapp  was  no 
commentator  to  please  the  men  of  the  modern  critical  school, 
or  nice,  over-refining  and  fastidious  tastes.  A  great  deal 
that  he  said  will  bear  perhaps  no  sort  of  close  scrutiny  ;  he 
set  down  every  thing  as  it  came  to  his  nimble  and  won- 
drously-furnished  memory,  and  rapid  glancing  mind ;  of 
all  the  sx:)mtualizing  old  commentators  he  is  the  chief. 
Matthew  Henry  has  a  flowing  and  felicitous  style  ;  he  is 
often  quaint,  never  coarse,  every  word  may  be  read  in  the 
family  ;  what  he  knew  and  had  read  never  appears,  he  al- 
ways keeps  such  a  highway  of  speech  that  the  most  iUiter- 
ate  can  apprehend  him  ;  he  must  have  known  Trapp's  book 
welL  Their  method  is  very  similar,  and  both  dealt  with 
Scripture  exactly  as  Augustine  and  Gregory  the  Great  have 
set  to  all  times  the  example.  We  do  not  mean,  of  course, 
to  compare  in  weight  or  worth  our  two  dear  commentators 
with  the  gi'and  and  immortally-beloved  bishops  of  Hippo 

*  A  Complete  History  and  Mystery  of  the  Old  and  New  I'estaments, 
Logically  Discussed  and  Theologically  Improved^  etc.,  etc.  4  vols., 
folio.    1G90. 

f  A  Commentary  or  Exposition  upon  the  Whole  Bible.  By  John 
Trapp,  M.A.,  once  of  Christ's  Church,  Oxford,  now  of  Wcston-upon- 
Avon,  in  Gloucestershire,  1G50-1GG0.  5  vols.,  folio.  Now  in  course 
of  reprint  by  R.  D.  Dickenson,  London. 


Jolm  Trapp  the  Commentator .  221 

and  Rome.  But  they  all  treated  the  words  of  Scripture  in 
a  manner  which  seems  now  to  be  impossible.  Every  re- 
motest thread  of  the  fringe  of  sacred  speech  was  to  those 
men  penetrated  with  divine  aromas  of  fragrances,  hke  "  the 
oil  that  went  down  to  the  beard,  even  Aaron's  beard,  unto 
the  skirts  of  his  garments,"  so  spiritual  power  and  meaning 
pulsed  along  every  syllable  of  the  Holy  Book.  They  could 
not  read  a  text  without  saying,  "  Surely  God  is  in  this  place." 
All  the  words,  too,  panted  and  were  alive  with  spiritual 
meanings — Ohrist  must  be  everywhere.  They  constantly 
heard  him  saying,  in  aU  the  texts  of  the  old  Book,  "  They 
testify  of  Me."  This  is  Trapp's  method.  A  good  deal  of 
modem  criticism  and  commentary  results  in  a  beautifully 
adroit  success  in  lowering  to  the  reader's  mind  the  whole 
tone  and  intention,  exclusiveness  and  spirituahty  of  the 
Book.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  nonsense  in  Trapp  ;  we  are 
often  compelled  to  smile,  and  somethmg  more,  perhaps,  but 
we  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  his  nonsense  is  always  inno- 
cent, and  we  would  rather  have  it  than  a  great  deal  that 
passes  for  modem  critical  refinement  and  sense.  The 
things  in  his  pages  which  are  most  far-fetched  and  amusmg 
are  dehghtful  compared  with  some  of  the  dreary  disserta- 
tions, the  occult,  critical  sagacities  and  impersonal  etymo- 
logical abstractions  in  which  some  modem  miuds  cut  them- 
selves adrift  from  aU  the  moormgs  of  sense.  His  reading 
must  have  been  extraordmary,  he  lays  it  aU  under  contri- 
bution ;  we  have  no  commentary  at  all  approaching  it  in 
its  multiplicity  and  variety  of  reference  and  suggestion. 
The  Fathers,  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  historians,  and 
philosophers,  the  chroniclers  of  our  own  country,  all  yield 
him  admirable  illustrations  ;  he  who  read  no  book  but 
Trapp,  translating,  referring  to,  and  verifying,  all  the  au- 
thors he  quotes,  could  only  be  a  learned  man.  Then  he  is 
quaint  and  witty,  and  then  he  holds  all  in  a  solution  of  rich 
imction  and  tenderness.     His  work  abounds  with  aoiecdote, 


222  In  the  Seventeeiitli  and  EighteentJi  Centuries. 

and  wliile  there  is  much  in  so  large  a  work  with  which  we 
might  dispense,  so  that  I  have  often  thought  it  might  be 
well  condensed  for  family  reading,  yet  I  am  compelled  to 
feel  that  for  ministers  and  teachers  who  desire  to  be  mas- 
ters of  assemblies,  no  commentary  is  so  rich  and  useful. 
He  does  not  refine  either  in  learning  or  thought,  he  teems 
Vvith  corresponding  texts  whatever  passage  he  expounds. 
His  knowledge  of  Scripture  must  have  been,  so  to  speak, 
infinite  ;  he  explains  a  text,  and,  in  doing  so,  refers  you  to 
some  out-of-the-way  text,  or  Scripture  illustration,  which 
has  most  likely  escaped  your  notice,  and  thus  often  guides 
you  to  a  whole  chain  of  illustration.  Certainly  William 
Orme's  criticism,  in  his  Bibliotheca  BMia,  partakes  only  of 
his  often  ungenerous,  and  always  cold  criticism,  when  he 
says  that  "  Trapp  was  a  man  of  some  vigor  of  mind,  but 
his  language  is  often  exceedingly  quaint  and  uncouth." 

A  large  volume  would  not  suffice  to  trace  the  character- 
istics, and  even  sHghtly  to  illustrate  the  various  featui^es  of, 
the  pulpit  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
Yet  I  should  like  to  mention  some  names,  not  offcen  heard 
now,  names  of  men  whose  works  are  few  and  rare,  and  not 
very  likely  to  be  reprinted  :  some  of  these  are  associated 
with  a  rare  amount  of  learning,  of  piet}'-,  of  calm  thought, 
and  still  more  frequently  with  the  excursions  of  a  most  hvely 
fancy.  Turn  to  the  shelves  of  the  Puritan  divines — those 
massive,  square,  closely-priated  volumes,  those  stately  folios 
— ^they  were  all  spoken  in  churches  before  the  great  parties 
came  to  their  defiant  struggle,  and  the  madness  of  that 
imbecile,  old,  frantic  Laud  tore  the  Church  in  twain ;  or 
churches  in  villages  and  in  towns,  while  the  strife  was 
raging,  and  the  Independents  and  Presbyterians  were  re- 
newing the  contest,  which  had  been  between  freedom  and 
episcopacy  ;  or,  perhaps,  in  lonely  village  chapels  and  con- 
venticles, in  the  j)oor  meeting-house,  retreating  into  the 
lonely  lane  from  the  sneer  of  the  satirist,  or  the  warrant  of 


J  dim  Everard. — Kirjath-Sepher.       223 

the  magistrate.  Let  me  mention  a  few  whose  names  and 
works  will  be  Hght,  and  help,  and  aid,  if  you  place  them 
within  reach  in  your  study.  There  were  men  to  whom,  I 
confess,  I  have  an  attachment  of  heart — the  Puiitan  mys-' 
tics  ;  especially  Geoege  Sixes,  the  friend  and  biographer  of 
Sir  Hany  Yane,*  and  his  friend,  Peter  Sterey,  whose 
work  on  "  The  Freedom  of  the  WiU,"'  and  his  rare  and  highly 
prized  "  Kise,  Race,  and  Royalty  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in 
the  Soul  of  Man  in  the  Gospel,"  and  liis  posthumous  work 
"  On  the  Appearance  of  God  to  Man,"  refract  and  glow  with 
broken  and  mystical  splendors  m  every  syllable,  disorderly 
and  incoherent  as  they  are.  More  to  the  level  of  ordinary 
apprehension  is  John  Eveeaed  *  of  Kensington  ;  and  to 
those  who  care  to  enter  upon  the  treasures  of  mystical  di- 
vinity, this  volume,  as  weU  as  those  mentioned  before,  is  a 
perfect  exchequer  of  divine  wealth  and  suggestion ;  and 
not  at  all  inaptly  does  he  illustrate  a  large  rehgious  philos- 
ophy of  his  time,  and  the  mode  in  which  the  letter  of  the 
word  was  made  to  give  up  unexpected  stores  to  the  patient 
seeker.  An  instance  of  this  occui's  in  his  mode  of  ex- 
pounding Joshua  XV.  15,  16,  17  : 

THE   SMITING  OF   KIRJATH-SEPHER. 

But  to  all  this  I  reduce  only  this  part  of  this  chapter  now  read, 
to  unfold  and  interpret  all  this :  And  for  the  present  I  have 
made  choice  of  these  two  verses,  to  give  light  to  that  whole  chax^- 
ter ;  and  that  chapter  is  the  exposition  of  this,  as  I  before  said : 
O,  how  like  is  my  text,  and  every  part  thereof,  to  those  new 
washed  sheep !  Cant,  iv.,  2,  Every  word  leareth  twins,  and  there 
is  none  harren  among  them. 

Of  which  two  verses,  I  shall  say,  as  Abigail  said  of  Imbal, 
when  David  came  to  destroy  him, 

*  Evangelical  Essays  towards  the  Discovery  of  a  Gospel  State.  By 
George  Sikes,  1666.  An  Exposition  of  Ecclesiastes,  or,  Tlie  PreacJi- 
er,  First  printed,  1680. 

*Some  Gospel  Treasuries  Opened,  or  the  Holiest  of  all  Unvailing, 
&c ,  &c.    By  John  Everard,  D.D.     lCo3, 


22^  In  the  Seventeenth  and EighteentTi  Centuries. 

"Regard  not  this  son  of  Belial^  and  let  ?iot  7ny  Lord  he  angry ^ 
Nahal  is  his  name^  and  so  is  he :  So  I  may  say  of  this  text,  as 
their  names  are^  so  are  they. 

Here  is  Kiriath-sepher,  and  Caleb,  and  Othniel,  and  Aclisah. 
"We  will  see  what  secrets  and  mysteries  the  Holy  Spirit  hath 
couched  under  these  yails ;  For  as  they  are  in  Hebrew,  they  ex- 
press nothing  to  us ;  but  read  them  in  English,  and  take  off 
their  vail,  and  you  may  see  what  honey  will  come  out  of  the  mouth 
of  the  eater^  and  out  of  thi3  strong  sweetness. 

What,  then,  is  Kiriath-sepher?  In  Hebrew  it  signifies  the 
City  of  the  Boolc^  or  the  City  of  the  Letter. 

"We  will  first  interpret  them  to  you  into  English,  and  then  we 
shall  come  to  show  you  what  they  are  to  every  one  of  us  ;  for  it 
is  the  office  of  the  ministers  of  the  New  Testament,  to  strive  to 
talce  off  the  vail,  that  every  one  may  see  his  own  face  in  the  Scrip- 
tures. 

in  the  next  place,  what  is  Achsah  ?  In  Hebrew  it  signifies, 
th£  rending  of  the  vail. 

And  then  what  signifies  Caleb  ?  In  the  Hebrew  it  is  as  much 
as  to  say,  3fy  heart,  or  a  perfect  heart,  or  a  good  heart. 

And  what,  then,  is  Othniel  ?  In  the  Hebrew  it  is,  God^s  good 
time,  or  the  Lord^sfit  opportunity. 

I  have,  beloved,  as  yet  read  it  to  you  but  in  Hebrew :  And 
then  it  runs  as  it  is  written,  and  Caleb  said,  Whosoever  smiteth 
the  city  Kiriath-sepher,  and  taJceth  it,  to  him  will  L  give  Achsah  my 
daughter  to  wife;  and  Othniel,  the  son  of  Kenaz,  the  hrother  of 
Caleb,  tooTi,  it,  and  he  gave  unto  him  Achsah  his  daughter  to  wife, 
and  so  on.  But  in  English  it  is  to  be  read  thus :  And  my  heart 
said,  or  a  good  heart  said,  that  whosoever  smiteth  and  taketh 
the  City  of  the  Letter,  to  him  will  I  give  the  tearing  or  rending 
of  the  vail ;  And  Othniel  took  it,  as  being  God's  fit  time  or  op- 
portunity, and  he  married  Achsah ;  that  is,  enjoyed  the  rending 
of  the  vail,  aud  thereby  had  the  blessing  possessed  by  Achsah, 
by  the  vail  being  rent,  both  the  upper  springs,  and  the  nether 
springs.  To  him  that  obtains  this  rending  of  the  vail,  to  him 
shall  be  given  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  he  pos- 
sesses/i^ZZ  content,  heaven  and  all  happiness,  and  whatever  his 
heart  can  wish  for,  as  we  shall  show  hereafter,  if  God  permit. 


TJie  Smiting  of  Kirjat}i-Sejp7m\         225 

The  smiting  of  this  Kiriath-sepher  is  the  smiting  of  the  Let- 
ter ;  we  must  strike  this  Letter,  this  Scripture,  and  take  it,  and 
then  we  shall  have  lonas^  the  gift,  or  reward ;  there  is  no  getting 
of  Achsah  to  wife  without  the  smiting  of  this  Kiriath-scphei, 
and  talcing  it ;  you  yourselves  must  be  the  Othniels,  but  it  must 
be  a  Caleb,  a  good  heart,  that  must  make  proclamation  in  you, 
encourage  and  put  you  on  to  this  work ;  you  must  know  this, 
Self  can  never  smite  this  Letter.  If  you  smite  it  for  your  own 
ends — for  your  own  carnal  advantages,  or  for  your  own  liberty — 
there  is  enough  would  so  smite  the  Letter,  as  St.  Paul  saith,  to 
abuse  their  liberty  by  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  satisfying  of  the  flesh 
— this  is  nothing  but  the  Devil's  and  Satan's  smiting  and  taking 
the  Letter :  for  flesh  and  tlie  old.  man  wished  there  were  no  law 
to  rule  and  bridle  it :  this  is  not  Othniel's,  nor  a  Caleb's  smiting 
and  taking ;  but  this  is  ourselves — this  is  not  to  strike  it  in 
ChrisVs  name^  but  in  our  own  names,  and  then  wo  shall  never 
marry  Achsah. 

He  that  rightly  strikes  the  City  of  the  Letter,  shall  have  Achsah 
to  wife :  observe  hence — 

That  we  may  have  the  Scriptures,  and  yet  not  marry  Achsah  ; 
we  may  be  very  conversant  with,  and  daily  use  the  Scriptures, 
and  yet  never  marry  Achsah,  never  possess  the  rending  of  the 
vail.  Oh,  brethren !  know  this  for  certain,  we  may  be  bred  and 
born  with  the  Scriptures,  live  and  die  with  the  Scriptures,  rise 
and  go  to  bed  with  the  Scriptures,  eat  and  drink  with  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  they  may  be  always  in  our  hands  and  always  in  use :  in- 
somuch that  we  may  be  able  to  give  account  of  the  whole  Bible 
by  heart,  and  yet  not  marry  Achsah,  and  yet  this  rocJs  yield  no 
water  to  quench  our  thirst,  and  all  because  we  read  them  as  a 
history,  as  things  done  long  ago  without  us,  and  not  at  present 
doing  in  us. 

Let  us  labor  to  preserve  the  Letter  of  the  Word  whole,  entire 
and  untouched;  but  the  Letter  is  said  to  kill,  not  that  it  doth  so 
in  its  own  nature,  but  per  accidens :  it  is  so  to  him  who  looks  no 
farther  than  the  Letter,  we  make  it  so  to  ourselves^  a  hilling  Let- 
ter, 

As  if,  suppose  I  jhould  give  you  a  cogal,  or  an  oyster,  and  I 
should  tell  you,  Take  this,  for  therein  is  precious  meat  to  sustain 
10* 


226  I'll  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

and  nourish  you.  Now  if  you  take  this  and  keep  it  by  you  and 
never  crack  the  shell,  that  so  you  may  come  at  the  meat  and  the 
virtue  that  is  in  it ;  I  may  say  now,  the  shell  kills  you,  for  if  you 
only  look  on  the  shells,  and  lie  watching  the  outside  only,  will 
this  nourish,  will  this  give  life  ?  Certainly  no  ;  but  if  you  crack 
it,  and  open  it,  and  eat  the  meat^  this  will  nourish :  yet  I  m.ay 
justly  and  truly  say,  this  cogal,  or  these  oysters  kill  you,  because 
you  depend  upon  that  which  will  starve  and  undo  you,  but  the 
meat^  that  gives  life,  so  in  the  same  sense  is  it  spoken  concerning 
the  Word.  Tlie  Letter  hills,  hut  the  Spirit  gives  life.  If  you  be 
always  Tiandling  the  Letter  of  the  Word,  always  chewing  upon 
that,  what  great  things  do  you  ?  No  marvel  you  are  such  starvel- 
ings ;  no  marvel  you  thrive  not ;  no  marvel  you  are  such  mon- 
sters, always  children,  and  never  come  to  any  growth  ;  no  marvel 
you  go  not  on  to  perfection ;  what  do  you  more  then  every  carnal 
man  may  do  ?  w^hat  do  you  more  than  hypocrites  ?  Do  not 
hypocrites  the  same  ?  Nay,  do  not  the  devil  the  same  ?  For  he 
knows  the  Letter  exactly,  and  he  can  discourse  excellently  there- 
of,/ar  heyond  the  learnedest  Rabby  in  the  w^orld  ;  but  I  say  then, 
if  you  rest  only  in  the  Letter,  that  kills,  except  this  Letter  be 
crackt,  except  this  city,  Kiriath-sepher,  be  smitten  and  taken,  ye 
cannot  come  at  the  kernel,  ye  cannot  have  Achsah  Caleb's  daugh- 
ter. 

Though  the  Letter  contain  in  it  life  and  nourishment,  as  the 
oyster-shell  doth  the  oyster,  and  as  the  shell  of  the  cogal  doth 
the  meat ;  and  ye  cannot  have  the  oyster  without  th&  shell,  yet 
you  see  you  cannot  have  the  meat  neither,  without  you  crack  and 
break  the  shell. 

This  was  a  singular  method  of  exposition  ;  the  style  of 
Peter  Sterry  was  more  suggestive,  rich,  and  magnificent, 
literally  his  pages  shine  like  the  dewy  spangles  of  the  hedges 
upon  a  bright  summer  morning,  they  are  glowing  with  a 
mystical  gold  and  glory.  Alas  !  how  many  names  for  the 
present  I  leave  unmentioned  ,the  ages  to  which  this  Lecture 
refers  were  the  ages  of  Hooker,  and  Milton,  and  Barrow, 
and  Taylor,  the  age  of  the  Field  of  Cloth  of  Gold  of  our 
language  and  literature. 


Puritan  WortJiies,  227 

Every  man's  mind,  as  we  shall  see  by-and-by,  makes  its 
own  style  ;  I  do  not  commend  this  style  to  you,  but  true 
stateliness  is  strength,  and  even  the  most  popular  stylo 
gains  by  that  tone  suppHed  by  Hooker  and  Milton.  I  can- 
not conceive  either  of  these  vast  men  as  orators,  their  works 
had  no  nimbleness,  they  move  like  the  sails  of  vast  ships 
and  fleets,  not  like  the  wings  of  birds  ;  this  is  not  the  im- 
pression the  pulpit  is  to  convey,  the  preacher  is  to  attack, 
to  be  busy  with  scaling  ladders,  to  use  the  arrows  of  choice 
words,  these  men  rather  blow  the  trumpet,  and  parley  and 
cry  aloud  for  a  truce  while  one  matter  is  being  debated. 

Beloved  names  crowd  on  names.  I  find  it  good  to  pro- 
nounce them,  but  I  cannot  tythe  the  shelves  that  give 
wealth  to  language,  and  speech,  and  thought.  L  can  say 
nothing  of  Thomas  Watson  ;  of  Thom.^  Brooks  ;  of  Nehe- 
MiAH  EoGERs,  the  author  of  The  Fast  Friend,  The  Figless  Fig 
Tree,  and  other  such  pieces  ;  of  Obadiah  Sedgwick,  a  master 
of  wit  and  tenderness,  especially  in  his  beautiful  piece,  The 
Shepherd  of  Isi^ael;  and  Godfrey  Goodman,  the  quaint 
author  of  The  Fall  of  Man,  Their  faults  are  not  so  much 
the  want  of  clear  arrangement,  as  of  mere  verbal  and 
desultory  observation,  a  lively  fancy  led  them  too  often  to 
the  mere  remarking  about  a  word  or  a  text  rather  than  a 
protracted  inquiry  into  the  scope  and  relations  of  it ;  from 
this  vice  Willet  and  Sclater,  Jacomb  and  the  Goodwins, 
and  Manton,  are  very  greatly  free,  but  of  aU  of  them  and 
of  these  also  it  may  be  said  for  the  most  part  they  broke 
their  treatment  of  subjects  and  texts  too  much  into  heads ; 
we  read  them  with  love,  and  with  use,  but  stiU  are  often 
compelled  to  think  as  we  read,  of  Herder's  definition  of  a 
sermon,  "An  animal,  with  an  emaciated  body,  stretching 
out  two  heads  one  after  the  other,  displaying  two  or  three 
teeth,  and  dragging  after  it  a  four,  three,  or  two-fold  tail, 
which  feebly  wags."  Emaciated  bodies  these  sermons  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  possess,  but  they  were  wanting  in  that 


228  In  the  Sevcnteentli  and  Eighteenth  Centuries. 

arcliitecture  in  the  laying  of  the  bricks  of  the  building, 
likely  to  impose  and  to  command  success. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  that,  while  the  writings 
of  Taylor,  and  South,  and  Barrow,  should  have  received 
the  honor  of  incessant  commendation  and  quotation,  the 
writings  of  Thomas  Adams  and  Brooks  and  Watson  should 
be  almost  unknown,  it  cannot  be  the  faults  of  their  style, 
they  exist  in  even  a  larger  degree  in  Jeremy  Taylor,  it 
cannot  be  their  inattention  to  the  principles  of  ne  quid 
nimis,  the  presence  of  superfluities,  that  was  a  fault  of  their 
age,  there  is  scarce  an  exception  to  the  sin  of  superfluity 
in  any  of  those  whole  pages  upon  which  the  fame  of  these 
men  has  floated.  Their  wealth  is  overflowing,  their  lan- 
guage a^nd  their  ideas  and  illustrations  roll  in  waves 
upon  our  mind.  There  is  the  wit  and  pungency  with  no 
unhallowed  and  servile  coarseness,  and  there  is  the  rich- 
ness of  learning,  and  majesty,  variety,  and  beauty  of  style, 
with  tender,  imaginative  pathos. 


Pulpit  Monographs. 
IV. — Puritan  Adams. 


HOMAS  ADAMS  has  been  called  the  Shakspeare 
of  the  Puritans.  In  no  sense  does  this  convey 
any  idea  of  the  place  he  occupies  ;  but  perhaps 
he  was  the  Herbert — the  George  Herbert — of  the 
pulpit.  There  is  scarcely  a  name  the  age  to  which  he 
belonged  has  preserved  which  is  so  surrounded  by  an 
atmosphere  of  obHvion  as  his.  He  is  now  to  us  a  voice  out 
of  a  cloud — at  best  a  shade,  and  nothing  more  :  "no  man 
knoweth  his  sepulchre  ; "  there  is  no  likeness  of  him ; 
nothing  is  known  of  his  parentage  ;  nothing  can  be 
gathered  of  his  hfe,  or  his  manner  of  life  ;  over  his  grave 
"  the  inquity  of  oblivion/'  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  would 
say,  "has  blindly  scattered  her  poppy."  He  is,  doubtless, 
found  in  the  register  of  God  ;  but  all  about  him,  if  we  may 
trust  the  industry  of  those  who  have  sought  to  perpetuate 
his  works,  has  passed  from  the  record  of  man.  Our  folio 
edition  of  his  collected  works  bears  the  imprint  of  the  year 
1629.  He  was  ahve  in  the  year  1658,  when  the  two 
sermons  were  published  included  in  Dr.  Angus's  edition. 
He  can  be  traced  from  pulpit  to  pulpit,  but  this  is  all  that 
can  be  gathered  of  him.     In  1612  he  was  preacher  of  tho 

(229) 


230     Pulpit  Monograplis  :  Puritan  Adams, 

Gospel  at  Willington,  in  Bedfordshire  ;  in  1614  lie  was  at 
Wingrave,  in  Buckinghamshire ;  in  1618  he  held  the 
preachershij)  of  St.  Gregory's,  under  St.  Paul's  Cathedi*al, 
and  was  "  observant  chaplain  "  to  Sir  Henry  Montague, 
the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  ;  in  1629  he  published 
the  folio  collection  of  his  works,  now  reprinted ;  in  1633 
he  published  the  well-known  Commentary  on  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter  ;  then  he  vanishes  from  sight.  Hints 
there  are  of  his  being  sequestrated  during  the  period  of 
the  Revolution  and  Protectorate — ^possible,  even  probable. 
In  1653  he  was  living  in  a  "  decrepit  and  necessitous  old 
age,"  and  most  hkely  died  before  the  period  of  the  Resto- 
ration. Through  what  an  eventful  period  he  lived  we  have 
seen  ;  through  w^hat  changes  of  events  and  princes.  His 
sermons  have  all  the  marks  of  the  transition  age  ;  they 
have  all  the  mannerisms  of  the  Puritan  theology  ;  while  in 
his  ideas  of  government  he  had  all  the  traces  of  absolute 
Toryism.  Like  most  of  the  Low  Church  paiiy  of  the 
present  day,  he  held  no  doubt  to  Puritanism  in  doctrine, 
and  Whitgiftism  in  Prelacy,  rubric  and  general  Church 
symbohsm.  Hence,  he  not  only  indulges  in  ample  eulogy 
upon  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her  thrice  blessed  memory,  but 
floats  with  almost  all  the  preachers  and  writers  of  his 
age  in  flattering  homage  to  James,  and  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  divine  right  of  kings.  Puritan  Adams,  no  doubt, 
suffered  by  being  what  he  must  have  been,  a  popular 
preacher.  Had  Hooker  been  under  the  necessity  of  de- 
Hvering  his  Ecclesiastical  Polity  in  discom'ses  at  St.  Paul's 
Cross,  had  George  Herbert  been  a  city  preacher,  or  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  one  of  the  divines  of  his  day,  in  no 
instance  should  we  have  had  the  rich,  and  rare,  and 
peculiar  gems  they  have  contributed  to  our  language. 
Adams  is  very  popular,  but  his  style  is  often  very  rugged. 
He  speaks  to  the  populace,  and  his  fancies  and  conceits, 
his  anagrams  and  conundrams  of  speech,  are  fi'equently  a 


A  Character  Painter. 


23] 


snare  to  him  througliout  his  discourses.  He  is  usually 
rather  pretty  than  powerful.  Instances  of  bad  taste  are 
abundant  in  his  writings  ;  are  they  not  also  said  to  be 
abundant  in  the  writings  of  men  of  his  times,  far  greater 
than  he?  Moreover,  he  was  a  preacher  of  an  extinct 
order  ;  for  sermons  on  manners  have  now  gone  quite  out 
of  date,  and  his  were  such.  In  the  pulpit  he  portrayed 
character ;  we  cannot  say  after  the  manner  of  Bishop 
Earle,  and  Overbury,  and  Butler,  since  he  j)receded  these 
writers.  Thus,  the  portrait  of  the  inconstant  and  unstable 
man,  like  many  another  such  a  sketch,  justifies  this 
remark : 

He  would  be  a  Proteus  too,  and  vary  kinds.  The  reflection  of 
every  man's  views  melts  him;  whereof  he  is  as  soon  glutted.  As 
he  is  a  noun,  he  is  only  an  adjective,  depending  on  every  novel 
persuasion  ;  as  a  verb  he  knows  only  the  present  tense.  To-day 
he  goes  to  the  quay  to  be  shipped  for  Rome,  but  before  the  tides 
come,  his  tide  is  turned.  One  party  thinks  him  theirs  ;  the  ad- 
verse theirs  ;  he  is  with  both — with  neither ;  not  an  hour  with 
himself.  Because  the  birds  and  beasts  be  at  controversy,  he  will 
be  a  bat,  and  get  him  both  wings  and  teeth.  He  would  come  to 
heaven  but  for  his  halting.  Two  opinions  (like  two  watermen) 
almost  pull  him  apieces,  when  he  resolves  to  put  his  judgment 
into  a  boat,  and  go  somewhither ;  jH-esently  he  steps  back,  and 
goes  with  neither.  It  is  a  wonder  if  his  affections,  being  but  a 
little  lukewarm  water,  do  not  make  his  religion  stomach-sick. 
Indifference  is  his  ballast,  and  opinion  his  sail ;  he  resolves  not 
to  resolve.  He  knows  not  what  he  doth  hold.  He  opens  his 
mind  to  receive  notions,  as  one  opens  his  palm  to  take  a  handful 
of  w^ater :  he  hath  very  much,  if  he  could  hold  it.  He  is  sure  to 
die,  but  not  what  religion  to  die  in  !  he  demurs  like  a  posed  law- 
yer, as  if  delay  could  remove  some  impediments.  He  knows  not 
whether  he  should  say  his  Paternoster  in  Latin  or  English ;  and 
so  leaves  it,  and  his  prayers,  unsaid.  He  makes  himself  ready 
for  an  appointed  feast ;  by  the  way  he  hears  of  a  sermon ;  he 
turns  thitherward,  and  yet,  betwixt  the  church-gate  and  the 
church-door,  he  thinks  of  business  and  retires  home  again.     He 


232     Pulpit  MonograpTis:  Puritan  Adams. 

receives  many  judgments,  retains  none:  embracing  so  many- 
faiths  that  lie  is  little  better  than  an  infidel.  .  .  .  He  loathes 
manna,  after  two  days'  feeding,  and  is  almost  weary  of  the  sun 
for  perpetual  shining.  If  the  Temple  pavement  ever  be  worn  with 
his  visitant  feet,  he  will  run  far  to  a  new  teacher.  .  .  .  His 
best  dwelling  would  be  his  confined  chamber,  where  he  would 
trouble  nothing  but  his  pillow.  He  is  full  of  business  at  church, 
a  stranger  at  home,  a  sceptic  abroad,  an  observer  in  the  street, 
everywhere  a  fool. 

But  while  he  performed  this  task  well,  it  required  a  loose 
and  rapid  manner  and  tongue  to  give  effect  to  the  delinea- 
tions. He  draws  with  a  bold  hand  the  pictures  of  the 
manners  of  the  times.  Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  read 
Adams  attentively  without  feeling  that  the  writers  whose 
names  we  have  just  mentioned,  not  only  knew,  but  felt 
themselves  beneath  the  influence  of  his  portraitures.  Ho 
is,  perhaps,  rather  a  divine  morahst  than  a  theologian.  Ho 
foUows  no  thought  out  in  the  spirit  of  Aquinas  and  the 
schools,  or  even  in  the  spirit  and  manner  of  St.  Augustine. 
He  is  a  man  of  quick  impulses,  and  often  seems  to  be 
mastered  by  words  and  forms.  He  never  ventures  into  the 
region  of  abstract  thought ;  is  never  tormented  by  the 
causes  of  thiugs.  He  is  a  preacher,  and  as  such  he  holds 
up  the  mirror  to  his  hearers.  He  is  never  far  from  them 
in  heights  or  in  depths.  There  is  often  a  cheerful,  easy 
garruhty  about  him.  He  preached  in  stirring  times,  and  he 
knew  how  easily  to  turn  the  popular  feelings  by  hints,  and 
reference  to  the  political  events  of  the  day.  He  lived  and 
preached  in  the  day  of  the  gunpowder  plot ;  preaching 
from  the  text,  "Thou  hast  caused  men  to  ride  over  our 
heads,"  he  exclaimed,  "  They  love  fire  stiQ :  they  were  then 
for  fagots,  they  are  now  for  powder.  If  these  be  Catholics, 
there  are  no  cannibals."  The  point  of  many  of  his  allu- 
sions lay  in  the  memory,  and  therefore  in  the  ready  sympa- 
thy of  the  people. 


Aphorisms.  233 

Of  illustrative  aplioristic  words  the  reader  may  take  the 
following : 

A  beast  hath  one  kind  of  eye,  a  natural  man  two,  a  Christian 
three.  The  beast  hath  an  eye  of  sense  ;  the  natural  man  of  sense 
and  reason ;  the  Christian  of  sense,  of  reason,  and  faith. 

To  want  the  eyes  of  angels  is  far  worse  than  to  want  the  eyes 
of  beasts. 

Riches  are  called  hona  fortuna^  the  goods  of  fortune ;  not 
that  they  come  by  chance,  but  that  it  is  a  chance  if  they  ever  be 
good. 

Philip  was  wont  to  say,  that  an  ass  laden  with  gold  would 
enter  the  gates  of  any  city  ;  but  the  golden  load  of  bribes  and 
extortions  shall  bar  a  man  out  of  the  city  of  God.  All  that  is  to 
follow  is  like  quicksilver  ;  it  will  be  running. 

Not  seldom  a  russet  coat  shrouds  as  high  a  heart  as  a  silken  gar- 
ment. You  shall  have  a  paltry  cottage  send  up  more  black  smoke 
than  a  goodly  manor.  It  is  not,  therefore,  wealth,  but  vice,  that 
excludes  men  out  of  heaven. 

There  are  some  that  "  kiss  their  own  hands  "  (Job  xxxi.  12) 
for  every  good  turn  that  befalls  them.  God  giveth  them  bless- 
ings, and  their  own  wit  or  strength  hath  the  praise. 

It  is  usual  with  God,  when  he  hath  done  beating  his  children, 
to  throw  the  rod  into  the  fire.  Babylon  a  long  time  shall  be  the 
Lord's  hammer  to  bruise  the  nations,  at  last  itself  shall  be  bruised. 
Judas  did  an  act  that  redounds  to  God's  eternal  honor  and  our 
blessed  salvation,  yet  was  his  wages  the  gallows.  All  these  ham- 
mers, axes,  rods,  saws,  swords,  instruments,  when  they  have  done 
those  offices  they  nevei'  meant,  shall,  for  those  they  liave  meant, 
be  thrown  to  confusion. 

The  five  senses  are  the  Cinque  Ports^  where  all  the  great  traf- 
fic of  the  devil  is  taken  in. 

When  the  heart  is  a  good  secretary,  the  tongue  is  a  good  pen ; 
but  when  the  heart  is  a  hollow  bell,  the  tongue  is  a  loud  and 
lewd  clapper.  Those  undefilcd  virgins  admitted  to  follow  the 
Lamb  have  this  praise,  "  In  their  mouth  was  found  no  guile." 

Ask  a  woman  who  hath  conceived  a  child  in  her  womb  will  it 
be  a  son  ?  Peradventure  so  !  Will  it  be  well-formed  and  fea- 
tured ?    Peradventure  so  ?     Will  it  be  wise  ?     Peradventure  so  I 


234    Pulpit  Monograplis:  Puritan  Adams. 

Will  it  be  rich  ?  Peradventure  so  !  Will  it  be  loug-lived  ?  Per- 
adventure  so  !  Will  it  be  mortal  ?  Yes,  this  is  without  perad- 
venture, it  will  die  ! 

The  following  passage  upon  the  almost  casual  expression 
in  2  Peter  i.  17 — "  &uch  a  Voice  " — ^well  illustrates  how  a 
word  caught  him,  and  often  carried  him  away  upon  a 
stream  of  learned  and  gorgeous  fancy  and  discourse  : 

"such  a  voice." 
Tully  commends  voices :  Socrates'  for  sweetness ;  Lysias'  for 
subtlety;  Hyperides'  for  sharpness;  j^schines'  for  shrillness; 
Demosthenes'  for  powerfulness ;  gravity  in  Africanus ;  smooth- 
ness in  Loelius — rare  voices  !  In  holy  writ  we  admire  a  sancti- 
fied boldness  in  Peter ;  profoundness  in  Paul ;  loftiness  in 
John;  vehemency  in  him  and  his  brother  James,  those  two  sons 
of  thunder;  fervency  in  Simon  the  zealous.  Among  ecclesiasti- 
cal writers,  we  admire  weight  in  Tertullian ;  a  gracious  com- 
posure of  well-mattered  words  in  Lactantius  ;  a  flowing  speech 
in  Cyprian ;  a  familiar  stateliness  in  Chrysostom ;  a  conscionablc 
delight  in  Bernard ;  and  all  these  graces  in  good  Saint  Augus- 
tine. Some  construed  the  Scriptures  allegorically,  as  Origen ; 
some  literally  as  Jerome ;  some  morally,  as  Gregory ;  others  pa- 
thetically, as  Chrysostom ;  others  dogmatically  as  Augustine. 
The  new  writers  have  tlieir  several  voices :  Peter  Martyr,  co- 
piously judicious ;  Zanchius,  judiciously  copious.  Luther 
wrote  with  a  coal  on  the  walls  of  his  chamber:  Res  et 
verba  Philipvus ;  res  sine  verbis  Lutherus ;  verba^  sine  re 
Erasmus :  nee  res  nee  verba  Carlostadius.  Melancthon  had  both 
style  and  matter ;  Luther  matter  without  style;  Erasmus  style 
without  matter  ;  Carlsdat,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  Calvin 
was  behind  none,  not  the  best  of  them,  for  a  sweet  dilucidation 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  urging  of  solid  arguments  against  the 
Anti-Christians.  One  is  hapj^y  in  expounding  the  words ; 
another  in  delivering  the  matter ;  a  third  for  cases  of  conscience ; 
a  fourth  to  determine  the  school  doubts.  But  now  put  all  these 
together :  a  hundred  Peters  and  Pauls ;  a  thousand  Bernards 
and  Augustines;  a  million  of  Calvins  and  Mclancthons.     Let 


Ringing  the  Changes  on  a  Word,       235 

not  their  voices  be  once  named  with  this  voice :  they  all  spake 
as  children.     I'his  is  the  voice  of  the  Ancient  of  Days, 

Thus  he  rang  the  changes  very  effectively  on  a  word  as 


DUST. 

Dus%  the  matter  of  our  substance,  the  house  of  our  souls,  the 
original  grains  whereof  we  were  made,  the  top  of  all  our 
kindred.  The  glory  of  the  strongest  man,  the  beauty  of  the 
fairest  woman,  all  is  but  dust.  Dust^  the  only  compounder 
of  differences,  the  absolver  of  all  distinctions.  Who  can  say 
which  was  the  client,  which  the  lawyer;  which  the  borrower, 
which  the  lender ;  which  the  captive,  which  the  conqueror, 
when  they  all  lie  together  in  l)lended  dust  ? 

Dust ;  not  marble  nor  porphyry,  gold  nor  precious  stone,  w^as 
the  matter  of  our  bodies,  but  earth,  and  the  fractions  of  the 
earth,  dust.  Dust^  the  sport  of  the  wind,  the  very  slave  of  the 
besom.  This  is  the  pit  from  whence  we  are  digged,  and  this  is 
the  pit  to  which  we  shall  be  resolved.  "  Dust  thou  art,  and  to 
dust  thou  shalt  return  again,"  Gen.  iii.  19.  They  that  sit  in  the 
dust,  and  feel  their  own  materials  about  them,  may  well  renounce 
the  ornaments  of  pride,  the  gulf  of  avarice,  the  foolish  lusts 
of  concupiscence.  Let  the  covetous  think.  What  do  I  scrape  for? 
a  little  golden  dust;  the  ambitious.  What  do  I  aspire  for? 
a  little  honorable  dust ;  the  libidinous,  What  do  I  languish  for  ? 
a  little  animated  dust^  blown  away  with  the  breath  of  God's  dis- 
pleasure. 

Oh,  how  goodly  this  building  of  man  appears  when  it  is 
clothed  with  beauty  and  honor !  A  face  full  of  majesty,  the 
throne  of  comeliness,  wherein  the  whiteness  of  the  hly  contends 
with  the  sanguine  of  the  rose;  an  active  hand,  an  erected 
countenance,  an  eye  sparkling  out  lustre,  a  smooth  complexion, 
arising  from  an  excellent  temperature  and  composition  ;  whereas 
other  creatures,  by  reason  of  their  cold  and  gross  humors,  are 
grown  over,  beasts  with  hair,  fowls  with  feathers,  fishes  with 
scales.  Oh,  what  a  worjjman  was  this,  that  could  raise  such  a 
fabric  out  of  the  earth,  and  lay  such  orient  colors  upon  dust ! 
Yet  all  is  but  <:?W5^,  walking,  talking,  breathing  dust;  all  this 


236     Ptdpit  Monograplis :  Puritan  Adams. 

beauty  but  the  effect  of  a  well-concocted  food,  and  life  itself  but 
a  walk  from  dust  to  dust.  Yea,  and  this  man,  or  that  woman,  is 
never  so  beautiful  as  when  they  sit  weeping  for  their  sins  in  the 
dust :  as  Mary  Magdalene  was  then  fairest  when  she  kneeled  in 
the  dust,  bathing  the  feet  of  Christ  with  her  tears,  and  wiping 
them  with  her  hairs ;  like  heaven,  fair  sightward  to  us  that  are 
without,  but  more  fair  to  them  that  are  within. 

The  dust  is  come  of  the  same  house  that  we  are,  and  when 
she  sees  us  proud  and  forgetful  of  ourselves,  she  thinks  with 
herself,  Why  should  not  she  that  is  descended  as  well  as  we 
bear  up  her  plumes  as  high  as  ours?  Therefore  she  so  often 
borrows  wings  of  the  wind,  to  mount  aloft  into  the  air,  and  in 
the  streets  and  highways  dasheth  herself  into  our  eyes,  as  if  she 
w^ould  say.  Are  you  my  kindred,  and  will  not  know  me  ? 
Will  you  take  no  notice  of  your  own  mother  ?  To  tax  the  folly 
of  our  ambition,  the  dust  in  the  street  takes  pleasure  to  be 
ambitious. 

The  mind  of  Pmitan  Adams  did  not  express  itself  in  the 
copious  and  sonorous  eloquence  of  Hooker,  nor  had  his 
fancy  the  solemn,  quaintly  gargoyled  style  and  thoughtful- 
ness,  the  subtle  paradoxical  of  Sii*  Thomas  Browne  ;  for, 
as  we  have  already  said,  he  was  a  preacher,  and  he  evidently 
thought  constantly  of  his  audience  ;  but  in  his  sermons 
win  be  found  many  of  the  best  characteristics  of  aU  the  wit 
of  Fuller,  and  the  allegoric  lights  of  Bunyan,  and  much 
of  the  out-of-the-way  learning  and  radiant  fancy  of  Jeremy 
Taylor.  His  method  and  style  of  treating  a  text  or  subject 
are  altogether  his  own  ;  a  style,  however,  adopted  and  found 
very  taking  since  his  day.  We  cannot  commend  it.  Thus 
in  his  sermon,  "  A  Generation  of  Serpents,"  from  the  text, 
"  Their  poison  is  like  the  poison  of  a  serpent,  hke  the  deaf 
adder  that  stoppeth  her  ear,"  he  ex230unds  eleven  charac- 
ters.— 1.  The  Salamander y  the  troublesome  and  htigious 
neighbor,  whoever  loves  and  Hves  in  the  fire  of  contention. 
2.  The  DaH,  that  is,  the  angiy  man.  3.  The  Dij^sas,  the 
drunkard.  This  serpent  lives  altogether  in  moorish  places : 


On  the  Tongue.  237 

the  serpent  in  the  fens,  the  man  at  the  ale-house.  4.  The 
Crocodile,  the  hypocrite.  5.  The  Cockatrice,  said  to  kill 
with  its  eyes — the  courtesan.  6.  The  Caterpillar,  or  the 
earthworm,  emblem  of  the  covetous.  7.  The  Asp,  the 
traitorous  seminary.  8.  The  Lizard,  an  emblem  of  the 
slothful.  9.  The  Sea  Bea^peni,  the  pirate,  a  very  common 
character  in  Adams'  day.  10.  The  Stdlkfn,  the  extortioner. 
11.  Draco,  the  great  red  dragon.  Sometimes  his  illustra- 
tions are  of  the  very  queerest.  Thus  he  speaks  of  the 
wonderful  makhig  of  the  tongue. 

To  create  so  little  a  piece  of  flesh,  and  to  put  such  vigor  into 
it :  to  give  it  neither  bones  nor  nerves,  yet  to  make  it  stronger 
than  arms  and  legs,  and  those  most  able  and  serviceable  parts 
of  the  bpdy. 

Because  it  is  so  forcible,  therefore  hath  the  most  wise  God 
ordained  that  it  shall  be  but  little,  that  it  shall  be  but  one.  That 
so  the  paruity  and  singularity  may  abate  the  vigor  of  it.  If  it 
were  paired,  as  the  arms,  legs,  hands,  feet,  it  would  be  much 
more  unruly.  For  he  that  cannot  tame  one  tongue,  how  would 
he  be  troubled  with  twain  ! 

Because  it  is  so  unruly,  the  Lord  hath  hedged  it  in,  as  a  man, 
will  not  trust  a  wild  horse  in  an  open  pasture,  but  prison  him 
in  a  close  pound.     A  double  fence  hath  the  Creator  given  to 
confine  it — the  lips  and  the  teeth — that  through  those  bounds 
it  might  not  break. 

A  certain  quaint  and  frequently  happy  ingenuity  charac- 
terises all  the  sermons  and  the  writings  of  Adams.  We 
have  before  noticed  his  resemblance  to  Herbert  :  the 
quaintness  of  the  good  parson  of  Bemerton  is  found  in 
abundance  here,  not  less  than  his  piety.  Churchman  as  he 
was,  we  do  not  find,  indeed,  the  same  temple-hke  stillness, 
or  carved  imagery  of  thought.  Herbert's  life  was  secluded, 
lonely,  and  hermetic ;  that  of  Adams  was  passed  apparently 
for  the  most  part  in  London.  Herbert,  too,  was  a  more 
intense  ecclesiastic ;  his  fervors  were  monastic ;  and  although 


238     Ptdpit  Monographs :  Puritan  Adams. 

his  poems  are  not  organ-like  airs,  they  are  notes  from  a 
choir,  a  strange  piercing  song.  Adams  was  a  man  of  action, 
interested  in  all  that  went  on  in  the  great  v/orld ;  and 
quaint  as  he  is,  his  quaintness  is  rather  that  we  notice 
in  the  carved  oak  tracery  of  some  domestic  hall  or  ancient 
manor,  than  the  writhing  gargoyles,  or  the  dim  forms  of 
ancient  church  window.  He  did  not,  like  Herbert,  invite 
his  fancies  in  to  stay  and  converse  with  him  ;  he  followed 
them  out ;  and  even  while  he  followed  one,  a  host  started 
up,  and  we  sometimes  think  he  chases  them  all  in  rather 
imdignified  gait  or  mood.  Yet  there  are  some  notes,  and 
they  are  very  frequent,  which  remind  the  reader  of  George 
Herbert  or  more  aptly  Jeremy  Taylor. 

Men  and  brethren,  let  us  be  thankful.  Let  our  meditations 
travel  with  David  in  the  148tli  Psalm,  first  up  into*  heaven. 
Even  the  very  heavens  and  heights  praise  Him.  And  those 
blessed  angels  in  His  court  sing  His  glory.  Descend  we  then 
by  the  celestial  bodies,  and  we  shall  find  the  sun,  moon,  and 
all  the  stars  of  light  praising  Him.  A  little  lower,  we  shall 
perceive  the  meteors  and  upjDer  elements,  the  fire  and  hail,  snow 
^and  vapor,  magnifying  Him,  even  the  wind  and  storms  fulfilling 
His  word.  Fall  v/e  upon  the  centre — the  very  earth.  We  shall 
hear  the  beasts  and  cattle,  mountains  and  hills,  fruitful  trees 
and  all  cedars,  extolling  His  name.  The  chirping  birds  still  sing- 
sweet  psalms  and  carols  to  the  Creator's  praise,  every  morning 
when  they  rise,  every  evening  when  they  go  to  rest.  Not  so 
much  as  the  very  creeping  things,  saith  the  Psalmist,  noisome 
dragons,  and  crawling  serpents  in  the  deeds,  but  they  do,  in 
a  sort,  bless  their  Maker.  Let  not  man,  then,  the  first-fruits 
of  His  creatures,  for  whose  service  all  the  rest  were  made,  be 
unthankful. 

And  the  following  is  very  sweetly  expressed  : — 

Pride,  fraud,  drunkenness,  is  as  Mount  Seir  to  the  lovers 
of  them.  But,  alas !  how  unsafe :  if  stronger  against,  and 
further  removed  from,  the  hand  of  man,  yet  nearer  to  God's 
hand  in  heaven,  though  we  acknowledge  no  i^lace  far  from  God 


Literary  Characteristics  of  the  Age.      239 

or  from  His  thunder.  But  we  say,  it  is  not  always  tlie  safest 
sailing  on  the  top  of  the  mast.  To  live  on  the  mountainous 
height  of  a  temporal  estate  is  neither  wise  nor  hapjDy.  Men 
standing  in  the  shade  of  humble  valleys,  look  up  and  wonder  at 
the  height  of  hills,  and  think  it  goodly  living  there,  as  Peter 
thought  Tabor.  But  when,  with  weary  limbs,  they  have 
ascended,  and  find  the  beams  of  the  sun  melting  their  spirits, 
or  the  cold  blasts  of  wind  making  their  sinews  slack,  flashes 
of  lightning,  or  cracks  of  thunder,  soonest  endangering  their 
advanced  heads,  then  they  confess  (checking  their  proud  conceit) 
the  low  valley  is  safest.  For  the  fruitful  dews  that  fall  fast  on 
the  hills  stay  least  while  there ;  but  run  down  to  the  valley : 
and  though,  on  such  a  promontory,  a  man  further  sees,  and  is 
further  seen,  yet,  in  the  valley,  where  he  sees  less  he  enjoys 
more! 

Again  : 

There  is  so  much  comfort  in  sorrow  as  to  make  all  affliction 
to  the  elect,  a  song  in  the  night.  Adversity  sends  us  to  Christ, 
as  the  leprosy  sent  those  ten.  Prosi^erity  makes  us  turn  our 
backs  upon  Christ  and  leave  him,  as  health  did  those  nine 
(Luke  xvii.)  David's  sweetest  songs  were  his  tears.  In  mis- 
cry  he  spared  Saul,  his  great  adversary;  in  peace,  he  killed 
Uriah,  his  dear  friend.  The  wicked  sing  with  grasshoppers,  in 
fair  weather ;  but  the  faithful  (in  this  like  sirens)  can  sing  in 
a  storm.  "When  a  man  cannot  find  peace  upon  earth,  he  quickly 
runs  to  heaven  to  seek  it.  Afflictions  sometimes  maketh  an 
evil  man  good,  always  a  good  man  better. 

We  could  imagine  the  author  of  the  Urn  Burial  had  the 
following  in  his  mind  in  a  famous  j)assage  : 

No,  they  that  are  written  in  the  eternal  leaves  of  heaven,  shall 
never  be  wrapt  in  the  cloudy  sheets  of  darkness.  A  man  may 
have  his  name  written  in  the  chronicles,  yet  lost ;  written  in 
durable  marble,  yet  perish  ;  written  on  a  monument  equal  to  a 
Colossus,  yet  be  ignominious ;  written  on  the  hospital  gates, 
yet  go  to  hell;  written  on  his  own  house,  yet  another  come  to 
possess  it.  All  these  are  but  writings  in  the  dust,  or  upon  the 
waters,  where  the  characters  i^crish  so  soon  as  they  are  made. 


240     Pulpit  Monographs:  Puritan  Adams. 

They  no  more  prove  a  man  happy  than  the  fool  could  prove 
Pontius  Pilate  a  saint,  because  his  name  was  written  in  the  Creed. 
But  they  that  are  written  in  heaven^  are  sure  to  inherit  it. 

But  it  was  the  age  of  strange  conceits  ;  and  absurdities 
inwrought  themselves  with  every  department  of  taste,  the 
age  had  not  recovered  from  the  grotesque  freaks  of  the 
Elizabethan  time.  From  those  outrageous  leaps,  and  acro- 
batic displays  of  genius,  even  Shakespere  is  not  free,  and 
the  archictecture  of  the  time,  hke  the  speech,  w^e  know 
abounds  with  strange  displays  ;  allegoric  lessons  were  con- 
stantly offering  their  teachings  from  classic  forms  and  allu- 
sions, and  essays  on  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients  were  writ- 
ten in  a  way  which  often  to  us  seem  ludicrous  enough, 
graceless  and  tasteless  in  the  different  departments  of 
domestic  architecture.  The  pulpit  of  those  times  has  often 
been  found  in  harmony  with  the  taste  which  only  employed 
the  power  of  its  genius 

To  raise  the  ceiling's  fretted  heigh t^ 
Each  panel  in  achievement's  clothing, 

Rich  windows  that  exclude  the  light, 
And  passages  that  lead  to  nothing. 

And  quaintness  and  queemess  did  assuredly  inspire  not 
only  many  of  the  lines  of  the  poets  and  designs  of  the 
architects,  but  the  plans  and  conceptions  of  the  preachers 
too.  Few  could  preach  without  interlacing  the  English 
wdth  little  bits  of  Latin, — to  our  ears  and  eyes  it  seems 
the  merest  pedantry — purposeless,  for  nothing  is  illus- 
trated, and  nothing  proved.  It  was  an  absurd  fashion  of 
speech,  here  are  two  illustrations  of  this  most  singular 
mode ;  from  both  sermons  I  leave  out,  as  too  long,  the 
more  ludicrous  of  similar  passages  from  the  text  "  Take 
thou  thy  son,"  &c. 

Not  to  preface  away  any  more  tyme,  please  yow  to  call  to 
mind  these  four  generalls  observal:)le  in  the  text : 


Predclimg  in  the  Times  of  James  L      241 

1. —  Victima^  the  Hoast  or  Sacrifice;  described  here  by  a 
double  name.  1.  Proper,  Isaak.  2.  Appellative,  or  a  name  of 
relation,  Sonne ;  which  likewise  is  further  illustrated  by  two 
other  attributes  ;  the  one  taken  ab  electione  divina^  the  other  ah 
affcctione  humana,  1.  Unigenitus^  his  onely  sonne  ;  there's  God's 
inscrutable  election.  2.  Dilectus,  his  beloved  sonne ;  there's 
Abraham's  deerest  affection. 

2. — Sacerdos,  the  Priest  which  was  to  offer  up  this  sacrifice. 
The  person  not  exprest,  but  in  the  word  ToUe^  Take  thow.  God 
speakes  to  Abraham :  The  Father  must  bee  the  Priest  and 
Butcher  of  his  own  sonne. 

3. — Altare,  the  Altar  or  Place  where  this  was  to  be  offered ; 
set  downe  1,  Generally,  the  land  of  Moryah.  2,  Specially  8i(2)er 
una  montium,  one  particular  mountayne  in  that  land. 

4. — JRUuSj  the  Kite  and  Manner  of  sacrificinge,  or  the  kind 
and  quality  of  the  sacrifice :  Holocaustum^  it  must  bee  an  whole 
burnt  offringe. 

Agata,  from  the  text,  "  Then  said  Jesus,  Father,  forgive 

them,"  &c. 

In  which  Prayer  and  Supplication  of  his  these  six  thinges 
are  observable. 

1. — Quando^  the  tyme  when.  When  hee  was  hanginge  now 
on  the  Crosse,  and  ready  to  yield  up  the  Ghost ;  Timc^  then 
Jesus  sayd. 

2. — Quis^  the  party  prayinge.    Dixit  Jestis^  it  was  Christ  Jesus. 

3.  Cui  or  ad  Quern,  the  object  to  whome  his  prayer  is  directed' 
and  th^t  is  God  his  Father. 

4. — Quid,  the  matter  and  subject,  or  thinge  for  what  he 
prayed  ;  which  is  Pardon  and  Forgivenes. 

5. — Pro  quihus,  for  whome  hee  prayeth ;  lllis,  them,  his  Ene- 
myes. 

6. — Quave,  the  ground  and  reason  of  his  petition  ;  which  was 
theyr  Ignorance  ,  for  they  know  not  what  they  doe. 

The  Tyme,  when :  the  Persons,  who ;  the  Person,  to  whome : 
the  Persons  for  whome;  the  Thinge,  for  what;  and  the  Cause, 
wherefore. 

In  a  state  of  transition  from  the  times  which  produced 
11 


242    Pulpit  Monographs :  Puritan  Adams. 

these  curious  formularies  was  the  age  when  Thomas  Adams 
began  to  preacL  He  must  have  been  contemporary  with 
Bishop  Andrewes  and  Dr.  Donne.  I  love  Bishop  Andrewes, 
but  his  style,  almost  through  every  line  of  it,  abounds  with 
strange  readings  and  words,  thus,  "Wherefore  art  thou 
red  in  thine  apparel  T  "  Let  Him  be  arrayed  in  scarlet,  it 
is  His  due."     His  "Doctor's  weed" — 

ON  THE  BIRTH   OF   CHRIST   AT   EPHRATA. 

Even  so,  Lord,  saith  our  Saviour,  for  so  is  thy  pleasure.  And 
since  it  is  His  pleasure  so  to  deal,  it  is  His  further  pleasure  (and 
it  is  our  lesson  out  of  this  Bethlehem  minima).  Even  this,  7ie 
minima  minimi^  that  we  set  not  little  by  that  which  is  little, 
unless  we  will  so  set  by  Bethlehem  and  by  Christ  and  all.  He 
will  not  have  little  places  villified,  little  Zoar  will  save  the  body, 
little  Bethlehem  the  soul,  nor  have,  saith  Zacherie,  dies  parvus — 
little  times — despised,  unless  we  despise  this  day,  the  Feast  of 
Humility.  Nor  have  one  of  these  little  ones  offended.  Why  ? 
for,  Ephrata  may  make  amends  for,  parvula,  ex  te  for  tu. 

How  quaint  and  singular  reads  the  following  : — 

Will  ye  now  to  this  inglorious  Signe  heare  a  glorious  Song ; 
to  this  cratch  of  humiliiie,  a  hymne  of  caelestiall  harmonic  ?  If 
the  Signe  mislike  you,  ye  cannot  but  like  the  Song^  and  the 
Queer  that  sing  it.  The  song  I  shall  not  be  able  to  reach  to, 
will  ye  but  see  the  Queer  ?  and  that  shall  serve  for  this  time : 
For,  by  all  meanes,  before  I  end,  I  would  deal  with  somewhat 
that  might  ballajjce  this  Signe  of  His  low  estate.  This  the 
Evangelists  never  faile  to  doe;  Ever,  they  look  to  this  point 
carefully :  If  they  mention  ought,  that  may  offend,  to  wipe  it 
away  streight,  and  the  Scandall  of  it,  by  some  other  high  regard. 
See  you  a  sort  of  poore  Shepherds  f  Stay,  and  ye  shall  see  a 
troope  of  God''8  Angels.  Heare  ye  one  say,  layd  in  the  cratch 
helow  ?  abide,  and  ye  shall  heare  many  sing,  Gl  rie  on  high^  in 
honour  of  Him  that  lyeth  in  it. 

Vidisti  vilia  (saith  St.  Ambrose)  audi  mirisica:  Were  the 
things  meane  you  have  seen  ? 

Wonderful  shall  they  be,  ye  now  shall  heare  and  see  both. 


Lancelot  Andrewes. 


243 


Yilescit  prcesepe,  ecce  Angelicis  cantibus  lionoratvr  :  Is  the  Cratch 
meane?  Meane  as  it  is,  it  is  honoured  with  the  musike  of 
Angels ;  it  hath  the  whole  Queer  of  Heazen  to  sing  about  it. 
This  also  will  prove  a  signe^  if  it  be  well  looked  into  ;  a  coun- 
ter-signe  to  the  other :  That,  of  His  hurnilities  ;  this  of  His 
glorie. 

Lancelot  Andrewes  illustrates  the  monastic  method  in  a 
Protestant  Church,  listen  to  him  intently,  bring  to  his  words 
what  you  wiU  certainly  meet  in  them,  a  spirit  of  prayerful 
devotion  ;  forgive  the  quaintness  of  the  preacher  for  the 
holiness  which  shines  through  aU  his  words,  and  you  will 
not  listen  in  vain.  His  sermons  will  bear  modern  adapta- 
tion, if  the  mind  adapting  them  and  using  them  be  itself 
informed  and  filled  with  ardent  and  seraphic  reverence  for 
the  great  truth  of  the  Incarnation  ;  for  indeed  there  is  the 
glow  of  a  seraph  about  him — quaint  as  he  is  the  aureola 
of  a  saint  shines  over  him  ;  cloistral  and  monastic,  his 
sermons  are  wholly  free  from  the  wider  inspirations  of 
thought  and  worldly  knowledge,  they  are  narrow  in  their 
range  but  they  are  intense  ;  the  Hve  coal  from  off  the  altar 
has  given  to  all  his  faculties  a  pure  flame  ;  but  even  as  a 
coal  presents  strange  and  grotesque  faces  in  the  fires,  so 
with  the  ardors  of  his  style,  they  are  as  grotesque  as  they 
are  holy  ;  fancies  in  words  took  him  captive,  often  it  must 
be  admitted  very  pleasantly.  Thus  Christ  the  Conqueror 
coming  from  Edom  and  from  the  grave. 

And  comming  lacke  thus,  from  the  debellation  of  the  spiritual 
Edom^  and  the  breaking  up  of  the  true  Bozra  indeed,  it  is  won- 
dered, Who  it  should  be.  Note  this  that  nobody  knew  Christ 
at  His  rising ;  neither  Mary  Magdalen  nor  they  that  went  to 
Emmaus.     No  more  doth  the  Proj^het  here. 

Now  there  was  reason  to  aske  this  question,  for  none  would 
ever  think  it  to  be  Christ.  There  is  great  oddes  ;  it  cannot  be 
He. 

1.  Not  He :  He  was  put  to  death  and  put  into  His  grave  and  a 


244   P'^^^^  Monographs  :  Puritari  Adams, 

great  stone  upon  Him  not  three  days  since.  This  Partie  is  alive 
and  alives  like.  His  Ghost  it  cannot  be  :  He  glides  not  (as  Ghosts, 
they  say,  doe)  hut  paces  the  ground  tevy  strongly. 

N'ot  He:  He  had  His  apparell  shared  amongst  the  souldiers ; 
was  left  all  naked.  21ns  Partie  hath  gotten  Him  on  glorious 
apparell,  rich  scarlet. 

Not  He:  if  He  come,  He  must  come  in  white, in  the  llnnen  He 
was  lapped  in,  and  laid  in  his  grave.  This  partie  comes  in  quite 
another  colour,  all  in  red.  So  the  colours  suit  not.  To  be  short, 
not  He ;  He  was  put  to  a  foile — ^to  a  foul  foile — as  ever  was  any : 
they  did  to  him  even  what  they  listed;  scorned  and  insulted  upon 
Him.  It  loas  then  the  houre  and  power  of  darhnesse.  This  partie^ 
whatsoever  He  is,  hath  got  the  upper  hand,  won  the  field; 
marches  stately ^  Conquerour-like.     His  the  day  sure. 

The  following  little  extract  illustrates  the  refreshing  way 
Andrewes  had  of  pressing  out  comfortable  truth  in  his  bar- 
barous Latinities. 

There  was  then  a  new  begetting,  this  day.  And  if  a  new  be- 
getting, a  new  Paternitie  and  Fraternitie,  both.  By  the  hodie 
genuite  of  Christmas,  how  soone  Hee  was  borne  of  the  Virgin's 
wombe.  Hee  became  our  brother  (sinne,  except)  subject  to  all 
our  infirmities ;  so  to  mortalitie  and  even  to  death  it  selfe.  And 
by  death  that  brotherhood  had  beene  dissolved,  but  for  this 
dayes  rising.  By  the  hodie  genuite  of  Easter,  as  soon  as  Hee  was 
borne  again  of  the  wombe  of  the  grave,  Hee  begins  a  new  bro- 
ther-hood, founds  a  new  fraternitie  straight ;  adopts  us  (wee  see) 
anew  againe,  by  his  fratres  meos ;  and  thereby,  Hee  that  was 
primogenitus  d  mortius^  becomes  primogenitus  inter  multos  fra- 
tres :  when  the  first  begotten  from  the  dead,  then  the  first  be- 
gotten in  this  respect,  among  many  brethren.  Before  Hee  was 
ours :  now  wee  are  His.  That  was  by  the  mother's  side ;  so, 
Hee  ours.  This  is  by  Pdtrem  xestrum^  the  Father's  side;  So 
wee  His.  But  halfe-brothers  before ;  Never  of  whole  bloud,  till 
now.  Now,  by  Father  and  Mother  both,  Fratres  germanie^  Fra- 
tres f  rater  imi^  we  cannot  be  more. 

Bishop  Andrewes  talks  hke  an  old  monk  of  the  cloister, 


John  DoiiTie.  245 

devout,  narrow,  and  intense  ;  John  Donne,  another  of  the 
courtly  preachers  of  those  times,  talks  like  a  monastic 
schoolman  ;  he  also  was  a  contemporary  of  Adams,  they 
were  both  city  preachers.  But  Donne  was  in  himself  won- 
derful, he  was  a  kind  of  poetical  Aquinas,  in  the  pulpit  most 
metaphysical  of  preachers  ;  he  ran  his  speculative  spirit 
into  aU  strange  subtleties,  his  fancies  were  not  verbal  but 
real.  His  mind,  like  mysterious  lenses  and  glasses,  ex- 
plored the  infinity  revealed  in  httle  things  and  large  things  ; 
the  remote  orbs  of  distant,  dark,  and  inaccessible  heavens  ; 
the  unsuspected  recesses  of  homely  objects  and  tritest 
truths.  His  Gospel  was  the  same  as  that  which  Andrewes 
preached.  As  compared  with  Adams  both  Andrewes  and 
Donne  had  a  more  semi-Lutheran  and  semi-Romanist  way 
of  regarding  it,  in  their  ideas  of  the  functions  of  the  Church, 
and  perhaps  in  their  conceptions  of  a  moral,  rather  than 
forensic  justification.  Although  none  of  these  things  must 
be  pressed  too  closely  as  the  attributes  of  their  theological 
system.  Donne  had  a  consuming  genius,  its  flames  slew 
him.  But  I  have  referred  to  him,  because,  amidst  all  its 
magnificence,  he  illustrates  the  eccentricity  of  the  age  in 
thought  and  in  style,  "  Every  man  is  but  a  sponge,  a  sponge 
filled  with  tears."  "  "We  fell  by  Adam's  fall  into  the  dirt, 
from  that  we  are  washed  in  baptism,  but  we  feU  into  a  heap 
of  sharp  stones  too,  and  we  feel  all  those  wounds  and 
bruises  our  whole  lives  after."  There  is  nothing  simply 
barbarous  in  his  style  ;  his  fancies  startle,  they  do  not  de- 
grade. 

CLOUDS. 

We  take  a  star  to  be  the  thickest,  and  so  the  impurest,  and 
ignoblest  part  of  that  sphere,  and  yet,  by  the  illjjstration  of  the 
sun,  it  becomes  a  glorious.  Clouds  are  but  the  beds,  and  wombs 
of  distempered  and  malignant  impressions,  of  vapors,  and  exha- 
lations, and  the  furnaces  of  lightnings  and  of  thunder ;  yet  by 
the  presence  of  Christ,  and  his  employment,  these  clouds  are 


246   Pulpit  Mo7iograpli8 :  Puritan  Adams. 

made  glorious  chariots  to  bring  him  and  his  saints  together. 
Those  vapors  and  clouds  which  David  speaks  of,  St.  Augustine 
interprets  of  the  ministers  of  the  church,  that  they  are  those 
clouds.  Those  ministers  may  have  clouds  in  their  understanding 
and  knowledge  (some  may  be  less  learned  than  others),  and 
clouds  in  their  elocution  and  utterance  (some  may  have  an  un- 
acceptable deliverance),  and  clouds  in  their  aspect  and  coun- 
tenance (some  may  have  an  unpleasing  presence),  and  clouds  in 
their  respect  and  maintenance  (some  may  be-oppressed  in  their 
fortunes),  but  still  they  are  such  clouds  as  are  sent  by  Christ  to 
bring  thee  up  to  him.  And  as  the  children  of  Israel  received 
direction  and  benefit,  as  well  by  the  pillar  of  cloud  as  by  the 
pillar  of  fire,  so  do  the  children  of  God  in  the  church,  as  well 
by  preachers  of  inferior  gifts,  as  by  higher.  In  nubihus ;  Christ 
does  not  come  in  a  chariot  and  send  carts  for  us.  He  comes  aa 
he  went ;  "  This  same  Jesus  which  is  taken  from  you  into  heaven 
shall  so  come,  in  like  manner  as  ye  have  seen  him  go  into  heaven ;" 
say  the  angels  at  his  ascension. 

GOD   IN  A  CIRCLE. 

He  shows  no  mercy  which  you  can  call  his  greatest  mercy,  his 
mercy  is  never  at  the  highest ;  whatsoever  he  hath  done  for  thy 
soul  or  for  any  other  in  applying  himself  to  it,  he  can  exceed 
that.  Only  he  can  raise  a  tower  whose  top  shall  reach  to  heaven  ; 
the  basis  of  the  highest  is  but  the  earth;  but  though  thou  be 
but  a  tabernacle  of  earth,  God  shall  raise  thee  piece  by  piece  into 
a  spiritual  building ;  and  after  one  story  of  creation,  and  another 
of  vocation,  and  another  of  sanctification,  he  shall  bring  thee  to 
meet  thyself  in  the  bosom  of  thy  God  where  thou  wast  at  first, 
in  an  eternal  election ;  God  is  a  circle  himself,  and  he  will  make 
thee  one ;  go  thou  not  about  to  square  either  circle,  to  bring 
that  which  is  equal  in  itself  to  angles  and  corners  into  dark  and 
sad  suspicions  of  God,  or  of  thyself,  that  God  can  give,  or  that 
thou  canst  receive,  no  more  mercy  than  thou  hast  had  already. 
This,  then,  is  the  course  of  God's  mercy,  he  proceeds  as  he  begun, 
which  was  the  first  branch  of  this  second  part,  it  is  always  in 
motion  and  always  moving  towards  all,  always  perpendicular, 
right  over  every  one  of  us,  and  always  circular,  always  commu- 


^^  Tlriknown^  yet  well  Tcnowny  247 

nicable  to  all;  and  then  the  particular  beam  of  this  mercy  shed 
upon  Ahaz  here  in  our  text  is  Babit  signum^  "  The  Lord  shall 
give  you  a  sign."  It  is  a  great  degree  of  mercy  that  he  affords 
us  signs.  A  natural  man  is  not  made  of  reason  alone,  but  of 
reason  and  sense";  a  regenerate  man  is  not  made  of  faith  alone, 
but  of  faith  and  reason;  and  signs,  eternal  things,  assist  us  all. 

But,  as  we  said  of  Adams,  he  is  now  unknown,  save  by  these 
reliquaries  of  his  pen,  like  his  predecessor  in  metropolitan 
fame  for  Puritan  speech,  Henry  Smith,  of  whom,  indeed, 
little  as  we  know,  we  know  more,  for  of  him  we  have  a  ru- 
mor, and  an  effigy — such  as  it  is — but  of  Adams  nothing. 
Surely  these  felicitous  and  happy  sayings,  these  brilliant 
and  vivid  pieces,  must  have  won  the  ears  of  multitudes  : 
they  could  not  have  been  delivered  with  any  cold  and  feeble 
mannerism.  His  friendships  have  gone,  too.  He  knew 
Donne :  they  both  ministered  in  the  same  old  St.  Paul's 
Church.  What  appreciation  they  had  of  each  other — the 
subtle,  metaphysical  speaker,  with  the  clear,  practical  one 
— ^the  quaint  creature,  full  of  visible  oddities  of  eloquence, 
with  the  solemn  spirited  man,  the  dark  sayings  of  whose 
harp  none  the  less  practical,  spoke  to  the  depths  of  inner 
conduct  and  speculation.  It  is  interesting  to  think  of  him 
in  London,  while  the  great  roar  of  events  rose  to  the  ear 
from  the  Continent,  and  throughout  the  land.  It  was  a 
glorious  age — the  age  immediately  succeeding  that  of  Eliz- 
abeth— the  great  struggle  rising  in  England  between  the 
people  and  prerogative  ;  the  great  struggle  rising  in  France, 
too — the  age  of  the  independence  in  Holland — the  age  of  the 
Mayiflower — the  age  of  the  murder  of  Ealeigh ;  of  the  fall 
of  Bacon  ;  the  translation  of  the  Bible  ;  the  Quixotism  of 
Laud  ;  the  execution  of  Strafford  ;  the  rise  of  the  civil  war. 
Adams  was  preaching  through  all  these  events,  and  in  the 
most  powerful  and  wealthy  district  of  the  city  of  London. 
He  was  there  when  the  members  took  shelter  from  the 
King  within  its  liberties ;   and  the  spirit  of  that  free  age 


248   JPidpit  Monographs :  Puritan  Adams. 

seems  to  speak  out  in  the  words  of  the  man.  What  does 
it  matter  really  that  we  know  so  little  of  him.  As  men  Hve 
neither  in  their  names  nor  their  bodies,  so  neither  do  they 
live  in  their  tombs  nor  the  hatchments  over  them  ;  and  of 
millions  of  men,  perhaps  as  worthy  or  as  mighty  as  Adams, 
we  know  as  Httle,  or  less.  So  drifts  away  many  a  simple 
parish  minister,  or  conventicle  teacher :  no  tombstone  marks 
his  grave,  no  printed  piece  of  paper  commemorates  his 
name,  but  the  "enduring  substance"  abides  in  spiritual 
power  conferred,  although  its  ancestry  cannot  be  traced. 
Fame  is  a  most  capricious  inheritance,  even  like  wealth :  it 
is  distributed  very  blindly.  We  know  a  great  deal  about 
that  ridiculous  Pepys,  and  that  absurd  jackanapes  Brum- 
mell.  Our  author  goes  altogether  out  of  sight,  wraps  his 
invisible  cloak  about  him,  and  goes  altogether  away  from  a 
world  which  did  not,  it  would  seem,  treat  him  too  well,  be- 
comes possessor  of  the  "  obHvion  which  is  not  to  be  bribed," 
and  some  may  think  his  lot  enviable. 

His  works  have  been  long  prized  as  a  vast  mine  of  illus- 
trations, a  fertile  field  of  happy  imagery.  Adams  we  in  no 
case  commend  as  the  architect  of  Thought  or  of  Theology. 
His  views — ^and  decidedly  Calvinistic  they  were — were  clear 
to  himself,  but  they  were  expressed  in  too  much  of  the 
style  of  Paul's  Cross  to  be  the  best  means  of  furnishing  a 
student ;  but,  for  a  happy,  witty  characteristic,  for  the 
quaint  intermingling  of  learning,  allusion,  fable,  and  fancy, 
for  fehcitous  description,  for  powerful  appeals  to,  blows  in- 
deed on,  the  conscience  of  the  hearer — say  rather,  vivid 
lightning-like  glances  into  the  eyes  of  conscience — Adams, 
we  believe,  has  few  rivals  and  scarcely  any  superior. 


VII. 


Wit,  Humor,  and  Coarseness  in 
the  Pulpit* 

MONG  the  contributions  of  Hiiram,  king  of 
Tarshish,  to  the  great  builder  of  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem — in  the  report  presented  in  the  Sec- 
ond Book  of  Chronicles — there  stands  .the  curious 
item  of  monkeys  and  peacocks.  Monkeys  and  peacocks 
have  been  very  plentiful  in  the  building  of  the  temple  in  all 

*  Among  tlie  innumerable  volumes  published  illustrating  this, 
we  may  mention : 

1.  Autobiography  of  Peter  Cartwrighty  the  Backicoods  Preacher : 
the  Birth,  Fortunes,  and  General  Experiences  of  the  oldest  American 
Methodist  Travelling  Preacher.  Edited  by  W.  P.  Strickland.  Lon- 
don ;  Arthur  Hall,  Virtue  &  Co. 

2.  The  Rifle,  Axe,  and  Saddle  Bag,  and  other  Lectures.  By  Wil- 
liam Henry  Milburn.  With  a  Preface,  including  a  Life  of  the  Au- 
thor. By  the  Rev.  T.  Binney.  London  :  Sampson  Low,  Son  &  Co. 
1857. 

3.  2''en  Years  of  Preacher  Life.  Chapters  from  an  AutoUgraphy. 
By  W^illiam  Henry  Milburn.  With  Introduction  by  the  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Arthur,  M.  A.    Sampson,  Low  &  Co. 

4.  An  Essay  on  the  Composition  of  a  Sermon.  Translated  from  the 
Original  French  of  the  Rev.  John  Claude.  With  Notes  by  Robert 
Robinson.    In  Two  Volumes.    1788. 

5.  The  Metropolitan  Pulpit.     By  James  Grant. 

G.  Scot's  Presbyterian  Eloquence.    Tenth  Edition,  1766. 

7.  Answer  to  Ditto,  1798. 

8.  English  Presbyterian  Eloquence,  dc.,  1720. 

&c.,  &c.,  &c. 
11*  (249)         • 


250         Wit,  Humor  J  etc.j  in  the  Pulpit 

ages  since,  especially  the  apes — the  monkeys.  It  might 
seem  singular  how  that  quaint  and  disgusting  beast  can 
ever  minister  to  the  service  of  the  masters  of  wisdom,  or 
the  priests  of  the  temple;  but  it  seems  certain  that  his 
foolishness  has  aided  the  plans  and  purposes  of  even  highest 
and  holiest  things.  Indeed  we  are  not  squeamish  in  our 
ears,  whatever  we  may  be  in  our  appetites  ;  it  is  with  food 
for  the  mind  as  with  food  for  the  stomach  :  all  food  which 
seems  coarse  is  not  really  coarse  ;  good  oatmeal  is  a  fine, 
honest,  nutritive  diet,  while  the  fine  kickshaws  of  a  Paris 
cook,  drenched  in  condiments  and  sauces,  are  among  the 
most  gross  and  vicious — ^the  most  really  coarse  and  innutri- 
tions abominations  which  can  vex  the  stomach.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Treacle  sometimes  has  offended  our  gastric  tastes,  but 
we  could  never  hsten  to  the  Bev.  Mr.  Honeyman  for  five 
minutes  without  being  surfeited  and  sickened;  true,  we 
have  no  wish  to  make  a  meal  of  either  the  one  or  the 
other. 

The  subject  of  these  remarks  is  a  veiy  large  one,  and  is 
capable  of  a  great  variety  of  treatment ;  it  is  perhaps  true 
that  the  taste  of  the  nation  and  of  the  Church  has  im- 
proved. Perhaps  the  things  altogether  outrageous  to  good 
sense  and  propriety  would  not  be  dictated  now  to  the  mind 
of  any  speaker.  We  are  far  from  thinking  they  would  not 
be  tolerated  if  uttered.  And  we  think  we  perceive  a  dis- 
position to  return  to  those  times  when  the  unction  of  a  dis- 
course was  in  its  gross  coarseness,  and  its  pith  and  its  power 
in  its  offensiveness.  Perhaps  it  is  impossible  to  wield  an  in- 
fluence over  immense  masses  of  people  without  something 
of  this.  Certainly  it  has  usually  been  the  case  that  those 
sacred  orators  who  have  moved  multitudes  have  done  so,  if 
not  principally,  yet  frequently  by  offences  against  the  canons 
of  good  taste.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  even  gentlemen 
and  scholars  thus  indecorously  exposed  themselves ;  the 
history  of  the  pulpit  furnishes  some  strange  instances  to 


The  Function  of  Humor.  251 

some  of  which  we  may  refer — but  these  are  comparatively- 
old.  Against  the  legitimate  use  of  humor,  wit,  and  satire 
in  the  pulpit  we  have  little  to  say  ;  those  who  can  use  them 
with  skill  may  find  these  weapons  of  speech  as  available, 
perhaps  more  available,  than  any  ;  for  they  certainly  are 
weapons  which  lie  on  the  side  of  the  more  simply  human, 
perhaps,  even  in  the  case  of  satire,  the  more  shining  part 
of  human  nature.  We  gain  power  over  men  principally  as 
we  remove  from  the  regions  of  the  abstract.  Even  imagi- 
nation is  most  powerful,  not  when  it  ascends  into  the 
heights  and  heavens  of  unrealized  poetry,  but  when  it 
rather  descends  into  the  household  and  the  shop  ;  and  here 
is  its  most  legitimate  realm.  No  one  can  doubt  that  humor 
may  be  pmified,  who  has  heard  some  of  the  great  pulpit 
masters  of  even  the  present  day  ;  and  we  beheve  that  its 
judicious  use,  reined  and  guided  by  piety,  tenderness  and 
taste,  would  do  more  to  bring  truth  near  to  the  hearts  of 
the  multitudes  than  any  other  element  of  speech.  It  is 
singular  that  so  rich  as  our  language  is  in  humor,  in  the 
pulpit  it  has  been  so  seldom  employed,  nay,  it  has  become 
so  rare  that  it  has  also  become  distasteful ;  and  he  who 
uses  it  has  to  calculate  on  a  fair  share  of  unpopularity  with 
his  brethren  in  the  ministry  for  his  condescension  to  the 
popular  infirmity  of  a  smile,  even  if  he  stop  sliort  by  many 
degrees  of  the  more  flagrant  heresy  of  a  laugh.  And  yet 
the  minister  may  be  sure  that  his  successful  speech  will  de- 
pend greatly  upon  his  ability  to  use  this  ;  for  it  is  humor 
which  is  the  great  detective  in  character — .it  distinguishes 
the  shades  of  minds,  and  hearty  humor  also  has  a  keen  eye 
for  the  frailties  and  failings,  the  sins  and  infirmities,  the 
lesser  and  the  larger  sorrows,  and  the  lighter  or  the 
weightier  joys  of  the  whole  human  family.  I  have  often  said 
that  a  man  may  as  well  preach  without  humanity  as  with- 
out humor,  but  then  perhaps  most  men  do  preach  without 
humanity — they  find  their  truth,  and  dissect  off  all  its  human 


252  Wit,  Humor ^  etc,^  in  the  Pulpit. 

relations,  and  hold  it  up,  a  mere  piece  of  curious  theologic 
osteology  to  the  eye. 

In  the  pulpit  any  man  who  does  not  aim  to  hft  his  aud- 
ience out  of  the  region  of  every-day  life — out  of  the  region 
of  sorrow  and  of  sin,  out  of  the  region  of  doubt  and 
trembling — ^the  preacher  who  does  not  perpetually  aim  to 
influence  the  mind  from  higher  regions,  had  better  for  his 
own  sake  hold  his  peace  ;  if  that  guiding  thought — which 
is  only  what  the  essayists  and  reviewers  would  call  the 
ideological  way  of  speaking  of  the  glory  of  God,  as  the 
reviewers'  chief  end — if  that  commanded  all  the  faculties 
and  powers  of  the  preacher  it  would  balance  all  his  efforts. 
Truest  humor  is  tenderness  ;  coarseness  is  always  synony- 
mous with  hardness ;  a  gross,  overflowing,  sensual  nature 
may  say  a  multitude  of  clever,  shrewd,  laughable  things, 
but  not  for  a  moment  merit  the  character  of  the  humorist ; 
they  may  be  just  the  luxuriant  outgrowth  of  a  hot  tropical 
climate  ;  that  wilderness  of  rank  luxuriance  does  not  de- 
light us,  it  is  the  nestling  ground  of  very  dangerous  things  ; 
the  very  beauty  needs  to  be  educated  in  a  less  voluptuous 
soil.  Such  productions  may  be  wonderful,  but  scarcely 
beautiful.  Such  is  the  coarseness  with  which  the  old  pulpit 
abounded ;  hardness  and  blasphemy  are  characteristics  of 
many  of  the  sermons  of  the  old  times.* 

*  No  doubt,  in  very  rude  and  primitive  times,  and  over  very 
rougli  and  ragged  congregations,  this  weapon  even  may  be  used, 
and  not  in  vain.  Mr.  Milburn  gives  us  an  account  of  an  old  Ameri- 
can preacher  of  the  backwood  districts  in  the  days  of  the  Saddle 
Bag: 

"  Take  the  following  as  a  specimen  of  their  predilections.  It  was 
a  discourse  delivered  by  the  Rev.  James  Axley,  familiarly  known 
as  *  Old  Jimmy,'  a  renowned  and  redoubtable  preacher  of  East  Ten- 
nessee. It  was  related  by  Hugh  L,  White,  for  many  years  a  dis- 
tinguished judge  in  that  State,  and  afterwards  a  conspicuous  mem- 
ber of  the  Federal  Senate. 

"It  was  noised  through  the   town  of  Jonesborough   that  Mr. 


Singular  Personal  Applications.       253 

Yet  this  is  not  so  objectionable  as  many  other  styles  of 
preaching  to  which  we  may  yet  have  occasion  to  refer.  We 
can  almost  match  it  ourselves,  from  the  unpubhshed  pulpit 
reminiscences  of  a  dear  departed  friend.  It  may  be  sixty 
years  since  there  frequently  came  to  Bristol  a  well-known 
Calvinistic  Methodist  preacher  of  that  day — ^ui  a  tlay  when 
flattering  titles  were  not  very  lavishly  distributed — called 
Sammy  Breeze  by  the  multitudes  who  dehghted  in  his  min- 
istry. He  came  periodically  from  the  mountains  of  Cardi- 
ganshire, and  spoke  with  tolerable  efficiency  in  Enghsh. 
Our  friend  was  in  the  chapel  when,  as  was  not  unusual,  two 
ministers,  Sammy  Breeze   and  another,  were   to  preach. 

Axley  would  hold  forth  on  the  morning  of  the  ensuing  Sabbath. 
The  famous  divine  was  a  great  favorite — with  none  more  than  with 
Judge  White.  At  the  appointed  hour,  the  judge,  in  company  with 
a  large  congregation,  was  in  attendance  at  the  house  of  prayer.  All 
was  hushed  in  expectation.  Mr.  Axley  entered,  but  with  him  a 
clerical  brother,  who  was  *  put  up '  to  preach.  The  congregation 
was  composed  of  a  border  population ;  they  were  disappointed ; 
this  was  not  the  man  they  had  come  to  hear,  consequently  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  misbehavior.  The  discourse  was  ended,  and  Mr. 
Axley  rose.  It  is  a  custom  in  the  new  country  when  two  or  more 
preachers  are  present,  for  each  of  them  to  have  something  to  say. 
The  people  opine  that  it  is  a  great  waste  of  time  to  come  a  long 
distance  and  be  put  off  with  a  short  service.  I  have  gone  into 
church  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morniog,  and  have  not  come  out  again 
until  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Short  administrations  are  the 
growth  of  thicker  settlements. 

'*  Mr.  Axley  stood  silently  surveying  the  congregation  until  every 
eye  was  riveted.     He  then  began  : 

"  *  It  may  be  a  very  painful  duty,  but  it  is  a  very  solemn  one,  for 
a  minister  of  the  Gospel  to  reprove  vice,  misconduct,  and  sin,  when- 
ever and  wherever  he  sees  it.  But  especially  is  this  his  duty  on 
Sunday  and  at  church.  That  is  a  duty  I  am  now  about  to  attend 
to. 

" '  And  now,'  continued  the  reverend  speaker,  pointing  with  his 
long  finger  in  the  direction  indicated,  'that  man  sitting  out  yonder 
behind  the  door,  who  got  up  and  went  out  while  the  brother  was 


254         ^^'^)  Humoi\  etc.^  in  the  Pulpit 

The  other  took  the  first  place — a  young  man  with  some 
tints  of  academical  training,  and  some  of  the  hvid  lights 
of  a  then  only  incipient  Eationahsm  on  his  mind.  He  took 
for  his  text — "  He  that  beheveth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that 
believeth  not  shaU  be  damned  ; "  but  he  condoned  the 
heavy  condemnation,  and,  in  an  affected  manner,  shaded 
off  the  darkness  of  the  doom  of  unbehef,  very  much  in  the 
style  of  another  preacher,  who  told  his  hearers  that  he 
"  feared  lest  they  should  be  doomed  to  a  place  which  good 
manners  forbade  him  from  mentioning."  The  young  man 
also  grew  sentimental,  and  begged  pardon  of  an  audience, 
rather  more  pohte  than  usual,  for  the  sad  statement  made 

preaching,  stayed  out  as  long  as  lie  wanted  to,  got  his  boots  full  of 
mud,  came  back  and  stamped  the  mud  off  at  the  door,  making  all  the 
noise  he  could,  on  purpose  to  disturb  the  attention  of  the  congrega- 
tion, and  then  took  his  seat ;  that  man  thinks  I  mean  him.  No 
wonder  he  does.  It  doesn't  look  as  if  he  had  been  raised  in  the 
white  settlements,  does  it,  to  behave  that  way  at  meeting.  Now, 
my  friend,  I'd  advise  you  to  learn  better  manners  before  you  come 
to  church  next  time. — B^it  I  don't  mean  him. 

"  '  And  now,'  again  pointing  at  his  mark,  '  that  little  girl  sitting 
there,  about  half-way  of  the  house — I  should  j  udge  her  to  be  about 
sixteen  years  old — that's  her  with  the  artificial  flowers  on  the  out- 
side of  her  bonnet  and  the  inside  of  her  bonnet ;  she  has  a  breast- 
pin on,  too  (they  were  very  severe  upon  all  superfluities  of  dress), 
she  that  was  giggling  and  chattering  all  the  time  the  brother  was 
preaching,  so  that  even  the  old  sisters  in  the  neighborhood  couldn't 
hear  what  he  was  saying,  though  they  tried  to.  She  thinks  I  mean 
her.  I'm  sorry  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  for  any  parents  who  have 
raised  a  girl  to  her  time  of  day,  and  haven't  taught  her  how  to  be- 
have when  she  comes  to  church.  Little  girl,  you  have  disgraced 
your  parents  as  well  as  yourself.  Behave  better  next  time,  won't 
you  ? — But  I  don't  mean  her* 

"  Directing  his  finger  to  another  aim,  he  said,  '  That  man  sitting 
there,  that  looks  as  bright  and  pert  as  if  he  never  was  asleep  in  his 
life,  and  never  expected  to  be,  but  that  just  as  soon  as  the  brother 
took  his  text,  laid  his  head  down  on  the  back  of  the  seat  in  front  of 
him,  went  sound  asleep,  slept  the  whole  time  and  snored  ;  that 


Story  of  a  Welsh  PreaGliei\  255 

in  the  text.  "But,  indeed,"  said  he,  "he  that  believeth 
shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  beheveth  not, — indeed,  I  regret 
to  saj,  I  beg  your  pardon  for  uttering  the  terrible  truth — 
but  indeed  he  shaU  be  sentenced  to  a  place  which  here  I 
dare  not  mention."  Then  rose  Sammy  Breeze.  He  began 
— "  I  shall  take  the  same  text  to-night  which  you  have  just 
heard.  Our  young  friend  has  been  fery  foine  to-night ;  he 
has  told  you  some  very  polite  things.  I  am  not  fery  foine, 
and  I  am  not  polite  ;  but  I  wiU  preach  a  httle  bit  of  Gos- 
pel to  you,  which  is  this — '  He  that  believeth  shall  be  saved, 
and  he  that  beheveth  not  shall  be  tamned,'  and  I  begs  no 
pardons"     He  continued — "  I  do  look  round  on  this  chapel ; 

man  thinks  I  mean  him.  My  friend,  don't  you  know  the  church 
ain't  the  place  to  sleep  ?  If  you  needed  rest,  why  didn't  you  stay 
at  home,  take  off  your  clothes,  and  go  to  bed  ?  that's  the  place  to 
sleep,  not  church.  The  next  time  you  have  a  chance  to  hear  a  ser- 
mon, I  advise  you  to  keep  awake. — But  I  don't  mean  him.^  Thus 
did  he  proceed,  pointing  out  every  man,  woman,  and  child,  who 
had  in  the  slightest  deviated  from  a  befitting  line  of  conduct ; 
characterizing  the  misdemeanor,  and  reading  sharp  lessons  of  re- 
buke. 

"  Judge  White  was  all  this  time  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  front 
seat,  just  under  the  speaker,  enjoying  the  old  gentleman's  disquisi- 
tion to  the  last  degree  ;  twisting  his  neck  around  to  note  if  the  aud- 
ience relished  the  '  down-comings '  as  much  as  he  did ;  rubbing 
his  hands,  smiling,  chuckling  inwardly.  Between  his  teeth  and 
cheek  was  a  monstrous  quid  of  tobacco,  which,  the  better  he  was 
pleased,  the  more  he  chewed ;  the  more  he  chewed,  the  more  he 
spat,  and  behold,  the  floor  bore  witness  to  the  results.  At  length, 
the  old  gentleman,  straightening  himself  up  to  his  full  height,  con- 
tinued, with  great  gravity : 

"  *  And  now  I  reckon  you  want  to  know  who  I  do  mean.  I  mean 
that  dirty,  nasty  filthy,  tobacco-chewer,  sitting  on  the  end  of  that 
front  seat ' — his  finger  meanwhile,  pointing  true  as  the  needle  to 
the  pole — *  see  what  he  has  been  about !  Look  at  those  puddles  on 
the  floor  ;  a  frog  wouldn't  get  into  them  ;  think  of  the  tails  of  the 
sisters'  dresses  being  dragged  through  that  muck.'  The  crest-fallen 
judge  averred  that  he  never  chewed  any  more  tobacco  in  church." 


256  Wit  J  Humor  ^  etc.^  in  the  Pulpit, 

and  I  do  see  people  all  fery  learned  and  intellectual.  You 
do  read  books,  and  you  do  study  studies  ;  and  fery  likely 
you  do  think  that  you  can  mend  God's  Book,  and  are  fery 
sure  you  can  mend  me.  You  have  great — what  you  call 
thoughts — and  poetries.  But  I  will  tell  you  one  little  word, 
and  you  must  not  try  to  mend  that — but  if  you  do  it  will  be 
aU  the  same.  It  is  this,  look  you — '  He  •that  beheveth  shall 
be  saved,  and  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  tamned,'  and  I 
hegs  no  pardons.  And  then  I  do  look  round  your  chaj^el, 
and  I  do  see  you  are  fine  people,  well-dressed  people,  well- 
to-do  people.  You  are  not  only  pious,  but  you  have  fery 
foine  hymn-books  and  cushions,  and  some  red  curtains,  for 
I  do  see  you  are  fery  rich,  and  you  have  got  your  monies, 
and  are  getting  very  proud.  But  I  will  tell  you  it  does  not 
matter  at  all,  and  I  do  not  mind  it  at  all — not  one  little  bit 
— for  I  must  tell  you  the  truth,  and  the  truth  is — '  He  that 
believeth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be 
tamned, '  and  I  begs  no  pardons. "  "  And  now, "  continued  the 
preacher,  "  you  will  say  to  me,  '  What  do  you  mean  by  talk- 
ing to  us  in  this  way  ?  who  are  you,  Sir  ?  '  And  now  I  will 
tell  you  I  am  PHly  Freeze.  I  have  come  from  the  moun- 
tains of  Cardiganshire  on  my  Master's  business,  and  His 
message  I  must  deliver.  If  you  will  never  hear  me  again, 
I  shall  not  matter  much  ;  but  while  you  shall  hear  me,  you 
shall  hear  me,  and  this  is  His  word  to  me,  and  in  me  to 
you — '  He  that  believeth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  be- 
heveth not  shall  be  tamned,'  and  I  hegs  no  pardons"  But 
the  scene  in  the  pulpit  was  a  trifle  to  the  scene  in  the  vestry. 
There  the  deacons  were  in  a  state  of  great  anger  with  the 
blunt  teacher  ;  and  one,  the  relative — we  beheve  the  ances- 
tor— of  a  well-known  rehgious  man  in  Bristol,  exclaimed — 
"  Mr.  Breeze,  you  have  strangely  forgotten  yourself  to-night. 
Sir.  We  did  not  expect  that  you  would  have  behaved  in 
this  way.  We  have  always  been  very  glad  to  see  you  in 
our  pulpit ;  but  your  sermon  to-night.  Sir,  has  been  most 


Tlie  Devil  and  the  Herd  of  Swine.      257 

insolent,  shameful."  He  wound  up  a  pretty  smart  con- 
demnation by  saying — "  In  short  I  don't  understand  you." 
"Ho!,  ho!  What!  you  say  you  don't  understand  me. 
Eh !  look  you  then,  I  will  tell  you  I  do  understand  you. 
Up  in  our  mountains,  we  have  one  man  there,  we  do  call 
him  exciseman.  He  comes  along  to  our  shops  and  stores, 
and  says,  'What  have  you  here?  anything  contraband 
here  ?  '  And  if  it  is  all  right,  the  good  man  says,  '  Step  in, 
Mr.  Exciseman  ;  come  in,  look  you.'  He  is  all  fair,  and 
open,  and  above-board.  But  if  he  has  anything  secreted 
there,  he  draws  back  surprised,  and  he  makes  a  fine  face, 
and  says,  *  Sir,  I  don't  understand  you.'  Now  you  do  tell 
me  you  don't  understand  me  ;  but  I  do  understand  you, 
gentlemen  :  I  do,  and  I  do  fear  you  have  something  con- 
traband here  ;  and  now  I  will  say  good  night  to  you  ;  but 
I  must  teU  you  one  little  word,  that  is — '  He  that  believeth 
shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  beheveth  not  shall  be  tamned,' 
and  I  begs  no  pardons.'' 

Some  sermons  are  much  more  coarse  in  seeming  than  in 
reahty.  We  have  lying  before  us  now  on  the  table  the  old 
sermon,  well  known  and  often  quoted,  Beelzebub  Driving  and 
Drowning  his  Hogs,  by  J.  Burgess,  with  its  queer  divisions  : 

In  these  words,  the  devil  verified  three  old  English  proverbs  ; 
which,  as  they  contain  the  general  drift  of  my  text,  shall  also 
contain  the  substance  of  this  ensuing  discourse. 

1.  The  devil  will  play  at  small  game,  rather  than  none  at  all. 
"  All  the  devils  besought  Him,  saying,  Send  us  into  the  swine, 

that  we  may  enter  into  them." 

2.  They  run  fast  whom  the  devil  drives. 

"  When  the  unclean  spirits  entered  into  the  swine,"  'tis  said, 
"  The  whole  herd  ran  violently." 

And  3.  The  devil  brings  his  hogs  to  a  fine  market. 

"  Behold  the  whole  herd  ran  down  a  steep  place  into  the  sea, 
and  were  choked." 

But  in  the  sermon  itself  there  is  nothing  characterized  by 


258  Witj  Humor  J  etc.,  in  the  Pulpit 

especial  bad  taste,  while  we  should  suppose  it  would,  to  a 
plain  people,  not  be  dehvered  without  useful  hint  and  sug- 
gestion. There  is  much  more  real  coarseness  in  the  follow- 
ing quotation,  given  by  Robinson  from  a  Eomanist  sermon  ;* 
but  indeed  our  readers  do  not  need  to  be  informed  that, 
for  illustrations  of  "filthy  talking," — and  "foohsh  talking 
and  jesting,  wliich  is  not  convenient,"  they  will  find  no  ser- 
mons Hke  some  of  the  old  Romanist  sermons. 

It  is  the  exordium  of  a  sermon  which  Father  Selle,  a  French 
Dominican,  had  the  courage  to  preach  in  Poland  before  his  Ex- 
cellency Cardinal  de  Janson,  ambassador  there : 

"Gen.  ix.  13.  *I  do  set  my  bow  in  the  cloud.'  It  is  not 
enough  for  the  celestial  rainbow  to  please  the  eye — it  conveys 
the  richest  consolation  into  the  heart ;  the  Word  of  God  having 
constituted  it  the  happy  presage  of  tranquilUty  and  peace,  '  I  do 
set  my  bow  in  the  cloud.' 

"  The  '  bow,'  enriched  with  clouds,  becomes  the  crown  of  the 
world — the  gracefulness  of  the  air — the  garland  of  the  universe 
— the  salubrity  of  heaven — the  pomp  of  nature — the  triumph  of 
serenity — the  ensign  of  love — the  picture  of  clemency — the  mes- 
senger of  hberality — the  mansion  of  amorous  smiles — the  rich 
stanza  of  pleasure — in  fine,  the  trumpet  of  peace,  for  '  I  do  set 
my  bow  in  the  cloud.' 

"  It  is  a  *  bow,'  gentleman,  with  which,  the  roaring  thunder 
jDcing  appeased,  the  heavenly  Orpheus,  in  order  insensibly  to 
enchant  the  whole  creation,  already  become  immoveable  by  his 
divine  harmony,  plays  upon  the  violin  of  this  universe,  which 
has  as  many  strings  as  it  has  elements — for  '  I  do  set  my  bow  in 
the  cloud.' 

"  Yes  !  it  is  a  ^  bow '  in  which  we  see  Mars,  the  eternal  god  of 
war,  who  was  just  now  ready  to  overwhelm  the  world  with 
tempest,  metamorphosed  into  a  god  of  love.  Yes  !  it  is  a  '  bow ' 
all  gilded  with  golden  rays — a  silver  dew — a  theatre  of  emer- 
alds, rubies,  and  diamonds,  to  increase  the  riches  of  this  poor 
beggarly  world.  '  But  you  perceive,  gentlemen,  I  am  speaking 
of  that  celestial  star,  that  bow  in  the  cloud,  Mary  Magdalen  I '  " 

*  Robinson.    Claude,  Vol.  p.  237. 


Coa/rse  Sermcnis^  and  Worse.  259 

"  Bravo !  Mary  Magdalen  is  like  a  rainbow,  and  a  rainbow  is 
like  a  fiddle-stick  !  " 

The  Church  of  England,  also,  must  bear  her  share  of 
this  burden  of  coarse  comparison  and  allusion.  Here  is  a 
citation  from  a  sermon  by  Edward  Willans,  vicar  of  Hoxne, 
Suffolk  : 

He  that  hath  no  charity  in  his  cribbage  must  needs  be  bilkt 
at  his  last  account,  for  all  that  faith,  which  he  turneth  up  in  his 
profession.  Let  us  prog  less  for  gifts,  and  pray  more  for  grace. 
The  fairest  way  into  the  city  of  the  text,  is  through  the  suburbs 
of  the  verse  before  it.  It  is  a  bargain  of  God's  own  making,  to 
honor  them  that  honor  him.  As  soon  as  we  are  loosed  from  our 
mother's  womb,  we  are  all  bound  towards  the  womb  of  our  great- 
grandmother,  the  earth.  The  most  emphatical  words  in  the 
text  (Matt.  xiii.  45, 46)  are  borrowed  either  from  that  richer  way 
of  merchandizing  by  wholesale,  or  from  that  poorer  way  of 
peddling  by  retail.  All  usury  cannot  draw  all  the  guts  and  gar- 
bage of  the  earth  into  one  man's  coffers ;  no,  nor  so  much  as  the 
white  and  yellow  entrails  of  the  Indian  earth. 

Kobinson  says  : 

Some  comparisons  are  odious.  The  filthiest  sermon  that  ever 
I  read  was  preached  by  the  glorious  author  of  "  Icon  Basilike,'* 
Dr.  Gauden,  before  the  Lord  Mayor  and  Aldermen  of  London,  in 
St.  Paul's,  1659.  The  text  is  Jer.  viii.  11,  "They  have  healed 
the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  slightly."  The  Doctor 
says,  "  The  prophet's  bowels  were  pained  by  that  coarctation, 
which  fear  makes  upon  the  lactes  and  smaller  bowels  near  the 
heart."  There  is  hardly  a  species  of  hospital  nastiness  which  is 
not  introduced  here.  "  The  text  has  six  parts :  a  patient,  the 
sick  Church  of  England ;  her  hurt ;  her  present  healing ;  the 
cheat  of  it ;  those  magniloquent  mountebanks,  fanaticks ;  and, 
lastly,  the  true  way  of  healing  by  that  catholicon  Episcopacy." 

Ah,  Doctor! The  Doctor's  patient  is  "his  daughter,  his 

sister,  his  mother,  a  forsaken  virgin,  a  rich  married  wife,  and  a 
poor  desolate  widow."  This  good  lady  has  got  "  flesh-wounds, 
ulcers,  gangrenes,  pustules,  angry  biles,  running  issues,  and  fis- 


26o  Witj  JHumor,  etc,  in  the  l^tdpit. 

tulas ;  she  is  plethorick  and  consumptiye,  her  spirits  are  flat, 
and  her  head  is  cracked ;  she  has  got  the  itch  and  the  scratch, 
and  her  inward  wounds  are  bleeding ;  "  and  in  this  miserable 
plight  '*  sons  of  Belial  commit  a  horrible  rape  upon  her."  Pre- 
sently they  bring  "  salves,  elixirs,  and  diurnal  doses,  and  sing 
lullaby."  At  last  comes  Dr.  Gauden,  and  applies  "  lenitives,  un- 
guents, and  poultices  ;  he  purges  humors,  removes  proud  flesh, 
probes  and  cleanses  festered  places  ;  cures  pantings  and  fainting 
fits  ;  and  all  the  other  fetidity  which  that  unmannerly  medicas- 
ter, the  devil,  had  caused  by  his  infernal  eructations." xVll 

this — and  ten  times  worse — at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  before  the 
Lord  Mayor  and  all  the  city  magistrates,  the  several  livery  com- 
panies, the  Lord  General  Monk,  the  clergy,  gentry,  ladies,  and 
populace,  by  their  "  humble  servant  in  Christ,  John  Gauden, 
D.D.,"  afterwards  the  Right  Rev.  Father  in  God,  John,  Lord 
Bishop  of  Exeter. 

In  reviewing  the  history  of  pulpit  eloquence,  we  are  often 
reminded  of  the  old  fable  of  the  cuckoo  and  the  nightingale. 
Both  contended  who  should  sing  the  sweetest :  and  the  ass, 
because  of  his  long  ears,  was  made  the  judge.  The  night- 
ingale sung  first,  the  cuckoo  next.  The  ass's  determination 
was  that  truly  the  nightingale  sang  pretty  weU ;  but  that 
for  a  good,  sweet,  plain,  taking  song,  and  a  fine,  clear  note, 
the  cuckoo  sang  far  better.  WeU,  we  too  have  our  own  re- 
gards for  the  cuckoo,  but  we  must  remmd  that  bird  that, 
in  fact,  it  is  not  a  nightingale.  We  see  some  dispositions 
now-a-days  to  elevate  the  cuckoo  to  an  unseemly  dignity. 
But  coarseness  is,  indeed,  neither  cuckoo  or  nightingale. 
Yet  in  many  ages  of  the  Church  has  not  this  been  the  most 
pleasant  and  engrafted  word?  There  is  an  order  of 
preaching  and  of  prayer  which  shakes  hands  and  says 
"  Hail,  fellow,  well  met "  to  blasphemy.  An  old  volume  be- 
fore us — "  Presbyterian  Eloquence  Displayed  "* — aboimds 

*  It  may  most  truly  be  said  of  this  selection,  An  enemy  hath  done 
this ;  but  they  enter  into  the  history  of  the  pulpit,  and  are  not  alto- 
gether unfair  illustrations  of  its  character  in  the  times  to  which 


Tli^  Foolish  Preaching  of  Good  Men.   261 

in  illustrations  of  this  shocking  mood  of  mind.  We  select 
a  few  niiistrations,  far  from  the  worst  : 

One  John  Simple,  a  very  zealous  preacher  among  them,  used 
to  personate  and  act  sermons  in  the  old  monkish  style.  At  a 
certain  time  he  preached  upon  that  debate.  Whether  a  man  be 
justified  by  faith  or  by  works,  and  acted  it  after  this  manner  : 
"  Sirs,  this  is  a  very  great  debate;  but  who  is  that  looking  in  at 
the  door,  with  his  red  cap  ?  Follow  your  look.  Sir ;  it  is  very 
ill-manners  to  be  looking  in  :  But  what's  your  name  ?  Robert 
Bellarmine.  Bellarmine,  saith  he,  whether  is  a  man  justified  by 
faith  or  by  works  ?  He  is  justified  by  works.  Stand  thou  there, 
man.  But  what  is  he,  that  honest-like  man  standing  in  the  floor 
with  a  long  beard,  and  Geneva  cowl  [hood]  ?  A  very  honest-like 
man!  draw  near;  what's  your  name,  Sir?  My  name  is  John 
Calvin.  Calvin,  honest  Calvin,  whether  is  a  man  justified  by 
faith  or  by  works  ?  He  is  justified  by  faith.  Yery  well,  John, 
thy  leg  to  my  leg,  and  we  shall  hough  [tri2>\  down  Bellarmine 
even  now." 

Another  time,  preaching  on  the  day  of  judgment,  he  told  them, 
"  Sirs,  This  will  be  a  terrible  day ;  we'll  all  be  there,  and  in  the 
throng  I,  John  Simple,  will  be,  and  all  of  you  will  stand  at  my 
back.  Christ  will  look  to  me,  and  he  will  say.  Who  is  that 
standing  there  ?  I'll  say  again.  Yea,  even  as  ye  ken'd  not  [hnew 
not]  Lord.  He'll  say,  I  know  thou's  honest,  John  Simple  ;  draw 
near  John ;  now  John,  what  good  service  have  you  done  to  me 
on  earth  ?  I  have  brought  hither  a  company  of  blue  bonnets 
for  you.  Lord.     Blue  bonnets,  John  !     What  is  become  of  the 

they  refer.  We  have  in  our  possession  a  curious  collection  of  tracts 
to  the  same  purpose,  exhibiting  the  defects  of  several  sides  and 
parties — such  as  Pulpit  Sayings ;  or  the  Characters  of  the  Pulpit- 
Papist,  examined  in  answer  to  the  Apology  for  the  Pulpits.  Sold  at 
the  Printing  House  on  the  Ditch  Side,  Blackfriars,  1688.  A  Cen- 
tury of  Eminent  Presbyterian  Preachers.  By  a  Lover  of  Episcopacy, 
1733.  An  Apology  for  the  Pulpits  ;  being  an  Answer  to  the  Book  inti- 
tuled Good  Advice  to  the  Pulpits,  1C38.  Seventeen  Arguments  Prov- 
ing the  Unlawfulness,  Sinfulness,  and  Danger  of  suffering  Private 
Persons  to  take  upon  them  Public  Preaching,  1651.  The  Preacher; 
a  Poem,  1700.    &c.,  &c. 


262  Witj  Humor ^  etc.j  in  the  Pulpit 

brave  hats,  the  silks,  and  the  sattins,  John  ?  I'll  tell,  I  know 
not.  Lord,  they  went  a  gait  [a  road]  of  their  own.  Well,  honest 
John,  thou  and  thy  blue  bonnets  are  welcome  to  me ;  come  to 
my  right  hand,  and  let  the  devil  take  the  hats,  the  silks,  and 
the  sattins." 

]VIr.  Simple  (whom  I  named  before)  told,  "  That  Sampson  was 
the  greatest  fool  that  ever  was  born ;  for  he  reveal'd  his  secrets 
to  a  daft  hussy  [foolish  wench].  Sampson !  you  may  well  call 
him  fool  Thomson  ;  for  all  the  John  Thomson's  men  [hen-j)ecH 
men]  that  ever  was,  he  was  the  foolest." 

I  have  a  sermon  of  theirs,  written  from  the  preacher's  mouth 
by  one  of  their  own  zealots,  whereof  this  is  one  passage  :  "  Jacob 
began  to  wrestle  with  God,  an  able  hand,  forsooth  !  Ay,  Sirs, 
but  he  had  a  good  second,  that  was  Faith  :  Faith  and  God  gave 
two  or  three  tousles  together :  at  last  God  dings  [beats]  down 
faith  on  its  bottom  ;  Faith  gets  up  to  his  heels,  and  says.  Well, 
God,  is  this  your  promise  to  me  ?  I  trow,  I  have  a  ticket  in  my 
pocket  here  :  Faith  brings  out  the  ticket,  and  stops  it  in  God's 
hand,  and  said.  Now,  God  !  Is  not  this  your  own  write  ?  deny 
your  own  hand-write  if  you  dare  ?  Are  these  the  promises  you 
gave  me  ?  Look  how  you  guide  me  when  I  come  to  you.  God 
reads  the  ticket,  and  said,  Well,  well.  Faith  I  I  remember  I  gave 
you  such  a  promise ;  good  sooth  Faith,  if  you  had  been  another, 
thou  should  have  got  all  the  bones  in  thy  skin  broken." 

Mr.  John  Welsh,  a  man  of  great  esteem  among  their  vulgar, 
once  preaching  on  these  words  of  Joshua,  "As  for  me  and  my 
house  we  will  serve  the  Lord,"  &c.,  had  this  preface  : 

"  You  think.  Sirs,  that  I  am  come  here  to  preach  the  old  jog- 
trot, faith  and  repentance  to  you ;  not  I,  indeed ;  What  think 
you  then  I  am  come  to  preach  ?  I  came  to  preach  a  broken 
covenant.  Who  brake  it?  even  the  devil's  lairds,  his  bishops, 
and  his  curates  ;  and  the  de'il,  de'il,  will  get  them  all  at  last.  I 
know  some  of  you  are  come  out  of  curiosity  to  hear  what  the 
"Whigs  will  say.  Who  is  a  Whig,  Sirs?  One  that  will  not 
swear,  nor  curse,  nor  ban  ;  there  is  a  Whig  for  you  :  But  you 
are  welcome.  Sirs,  that  come  out  of  curiosity  ;  you  may  get  good 
ere  ye  go  back  again.  I'll  give  you  an  instance  of  it :  There 
was   Zaccheus,  a  man   of  low  stature,  that  is,  a  little  droichy 


Peter  Cartwright.  263 

[dicarf]  body,  and  a  publican,  that  is,  he  was  one  of  the  excise- 
men ;  he  went  out  of  curiosity  to  see  Christ,  and,  because  he 
was  little,  he  went  up  a  tree :  do  you  think.  Sirs,  he  went  to 
harry  a  pyot's  nest  \rijle  a  magpie's  nesf]  ?  No,  he  went  to  see 
Christ ;  Christ  looks  up,  and  says,  Zaccheus,  thou  art  always 
proving  pratticks,  thou'rt  no  bairn  now ;  go  home,  go  home,  and 
make  ready  my  dinner,  I'll  be  with  you  this  day  at  noon.  After 
that.  Sirs,  this  little  Zaccheus  began  to  say  his  prayers,  evening 
and  morning,  as  old  honest  Joshua  did  in  my  text :  "  As  for  me 
and  my  house,"  &c.,  as  if  he  had  said,  Go  you  to  the  devil  and 
you  will,  and  I  and  my  house  will  say  our  prayers.  Sirs,  as 
Zaccheus  and  the  rest  of  the  apostles  did." 

This  state  of  things,  I  might  hope,  has,  with  us,  long 
gone  by,  and  yet  we  have  here,  circulating  widely,  the  hfe 
of  Peter  Cartwright,  a  gentle-minded,  lamb-like  Christian, 
to  whom  it  was  about  a  matter  of  equal  indifference  whether 
he  should  fight  or  preach,  and  whose  discourses,  not  unfre- 
quently,  had  all  the  most  offensive  vulgarity  of  the  quota- 
tions \7e  have  given  above,  although  set  to  the  tune  of  a 
widely  different  theology.  Now,  it  is  with  us  a  pretty 
definite  conviction,  although  we  are  aware  how  fearful  the 
hazard  is,  that  we  may  be  contradicted,  that  Christianity 
does  not  smile  upon  and  approve  bullying  and  pugilism. 
Certainly,  if  circumstances  arise  to  develop  the  spirit  of 
the  prize  ring  in  the  Christian  preacher,  tiiis  does  not  seem 
to  be  the  thing  to  exalt  to  the  ideal  of  Christian  biography. 
The  age  of  the  early  Christians  was  very  favorable  to  the 
inculcation  of  these  pugilistic  lessons,  but  singular  to  say 
the  New  Testament  contains  none.  He  was  a  strange  fel- 
low, this  Peter  Cartwright — no  doubt  much  about  him  that 
was  manly,  and  noble,  and  truthful  ;  but  the  yoimg  men 
who  read  it  to  their  great  edification,  may  remember  that, 
even  admitting  some  virtue  in  the  book,  it  belongs  to  an 
order  of  society  we  hope  entirely  unlike  ours  ;  a  society  of 
rowdies  and  fiUibusters,  of  scoundrels  and  slave-holders. 

Well,  we  do  not  desii'e  to  see  this  spirit  return  into  the 


264  Wit,  Humor,  etc.,  in  tlie  Pulpit. 

midst  of  our  pulpit  life.  "We  have  passed  through  the 
midst  of  it.  And  perhaps  the  coarse  and  vulgar  pugilist, 
Peter  Cartwright,  was  inherently  a  finer  character  than  the 
scholarly  South.  Meanness  is  never  so  detestable  as  when 
it  condescends  to  besmuxh  itseK  with  grossness.  "What 
could  be  expected  from  a  man  who  could  say,  "  gratitude 
among  friends  is  like  ci^edit  among  tradesmen,  it  keeps  biisiness 
up,  and  maintains  the  correspondence  ;  and,  we  pay  not 
so  much  out  of  a  principle  that  we  ought  to  discharge  our 
debts,  as  to  secure  ourselves  a  place  to  be  trusted  another 
time  ?"  A  nice  clean  sentiment  for  a  Christian  teacher  ! 
But  it  takes  away  all  surprise  at  the  following  passage, 
from  a  sermon  preached  before  the  King,  of  virtuous 
memory. 

"  Who  that  looked  upon  Agathocles  first  handling  the  clay, 
and  making  pots  under  his  father,  and  afterwards  turning  rob- 
ber, could  have  thought  that  from  such  a  condition,  he  should 
have  come  to  be  King  of  Sicily  ? 

"  Who  that  had  seen  Massaniello,  a  poor  fisherman  with  his 
red  cap  and  his  angle,  would  have  reckoned  it  possible  to  see 
such  a  pitiful  thing,  within  a  week  after,  shining  in  his  cloth  of 
gold,  and  with  a  word  or  nod  absolutely  commanding  the  whole 
city  of  Na23les  ? 

"  And  who  that  beheld  such  a  bankrupt,  beggarly  fellow  as 
Cromwell,  first  entering  the  Parliament  house  with  a  threadbare 
torn  cloak,  greasy  hat  (perhaps  neither  of  them  paid  for),  could 
have  suspected  that  in  the  space  of  so  few  years,  he  should,  by 
the  murder  of  one  king,  and  the  banishment  of  another,  ascend 
the  throne  ?''  At  which  the  king  fell  into  a  fit  of  laughter ;  and 
turning  to  the  Lord  Rochester  said,  "  Ods  fish.  Lory,  your  chap- 
lain must  be  a  bishop,  therefore  put  me  in  mind  of  him  at  the 
next  death." 

It  is  impossible  to  read  South  with  pleasure  :  in  the 
most  unlikely  places  the  abusive  sj^irit  of  the  foul-mouthed 
old  renegade,  for  he  had  been  of  the  Puritan  party,  and 
wrote  a  Latin  ode  of  fulsome  adulation  of  Cromwell,  offends 


Robert  Soutli.  265 

any  reader  who  regards  decency  and  decorum  of  language. 
We  feel  that  he  who  could  write  this  had  attained  to  no 
knowledge  of  the  text  and  purity  of  the  Christian  life.  To 
this  he  also  owes  much  of  his  popularity  ;  yet  his  style  is 
certainly  robust  and  masculine,  but  it  is  heavy,  the  sen- 
tences are  long,  and  sometimes  drag  wearily.  It  is  strange 
to  say  it  reads  hke  a  very  honest  style  :  there  are  no  glow- 
ing words,  no  fancies,  there  is  nothing  imaginative  or  ideal. 
He  never  rises  beyond  common  sense.  He  is  impatient  of 
all  those  topics  which  belong  either  to  the  symbolism  of 
the  Church  or  to  the  spiritual  aspects  of  its  faith,  and  his 
wit  is  not  profuse,  and  when  it  comes,  it  is  either  in  low 
vulgar  coarseness,  or  it  is  merely  a  remark  with  some  point 
in  its  analogy.  When  those  who  are  hot  acquainted  with 
his  writings  read  of  the  wit  of  South,  they  must  not  expect 
the  affluence  and  redundancy  of  Swift,  or  the  smartness  of 
Sidney  Smith  ;  and  some  acquaintance  with  his  works  will 
reduce  his  proportions  to  those  of  a  by  no  means  extraor- 
dinary writer,  as  he  was  in  no  sense  an  admirable  man. 
His  excellency  is  to  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  he  stated, 
with  great  clearness  and  precision,  truths  quite  level  to  the 
ordinary  mind.  His  cube  was  a  very  contracted  one,  and 
he  had  neither  the  intelligence  nor  genius  nor  taste  to  look 
beyond,  or  to  attempt  to  gauge  wide  relations  ;  this  is  evi- 
dent in  his  sermon  on  Contingencies,  which  at  once  illus- 
trates his  shallowness  in  philosophy  and  abusiveness  in 
spirit.  Perhaps  his  supposed  wit  and  real  coarseness  have 
obscured  his  more  solid  excellences,  for  they  are  to  be 
traced  ;  but  among  those  who  have  sinned  by  the  intro- 
duction of  drollery  into  the  pulpit  I  know  of  none  so  dis- 
gusting as  he.  He  had  not  the  shelter  of  a  harassed  and 
persecuted  party,  nor  the  motives  of  an  impulsive  nature. 
He  was  simply  a  spiteful,  malevolent  time-server ;  there 
was  nothing  kind  or  genial  in  the  humor  of  the  man,  and 
his  satire  was  only  able  to  take  aim  at  Puritanism  or  at 
12 


266         Witj  UnmoVj  ete.j  in  the  Pulpit 

piety.  There  are  fine  passages  in  South.  "  A  blind  man 
sitting  in  the  chimney  comer  is  pardonable  enough,  but 
sitting  at  the  helm  he  is  intolerable."  "  Solomon  built  his 
temple  with  the  tallest  cedars  ;  and  surely  when  God  re- 
fused the  defective  and  the  maimed  for  sacrifice,  we  cannot 
think  he  requires  them  for  the  priesthood."  When  we  find 
him  discoursing  to  us  as  follows  we  hsten  impressed  and 
thoughtful. 

Every  judgment  of  God  has  a  force  more  or  less  destructive, 
according  to  the  quality  and  reception  of  the  thing  that  it  falls 
upon.  If  it  seizes  the  body,  which  is  but  of  a  mortal  and  frail 
make,  and  so,  as  it  were,  crumbles  away  under  the  pressure, 
why  then  the  judgment  itself  expires  through  the  failure  of  a 
sufficient  subject  or  recipient,  and  ceases  to  be  predatory,  as 
having  nothing  to  prey  upon.  But  that  which  comes  out  of  its 
Creator's  hands  immaterial  and  immortal,  endures  and  continues 
under  the  heaviest  stroke  of  his  wrath  ;  and  so  is  able  to  keep 
pace  with  the  infliction  (as  I  may  so  express  it)  both  by  the 
largeness  of  its  perception  and  the  measure  of  its  duration.  He 
who  has  a  soul  to  suffer  in,  has  something  by  which  God  may 
take  full  hold  of  him,  and  upon  which  he  may  exert  his  anger 
to  the  utmost.  Whereas,  if  he  levels  the  blow  at  that  which  is 
weak  and  mortal,  the  very  weakness  of  the  thing  stricken  at 
will  elude  the  violence  of  the  stroke ;  as  when  a  sharp,  corrod- 
ing rheum  falls  upon  the  lungs,  that  part  being  but  of  a  spongy 
nature,  and  of  no  hard  substance,  little  or  no  j)ain  is  caused  by 
the  distillation ;  but  the  same  falling  upon  a  nerve  fastened  to 
the  jaw,  or  to  a  joint,  (the  consistency  and  firmness  of  which 
shall  give  force  to  the  impression,)  it  presently  causes  the  quick- 
est pain  and  anguish,  and  becomes  intolerable.  A  cannon  bul- 
let will  do  terrible  execution  upon  a  castle-wall  or  a  rampart, 
but  none  at  all  upon  a  wool-pack. 

But  he  will  not  allow  us  to  enjoy  in  quiet  long.  Even 
his  most  spiritual  passages  prove  themselves  to  be  the  off- 
spring of  an  um'cal  mind,  as  when  he  closes  his  exposition 


Robert  South,  267 

of  David's  desire  for  the  tabernacle  with  his  customary 
insolence. 


What  says  David,  Psalm  Ixxvii.  13,  "  Thy  way,  O  God,  is  in 
the  sanctuary."  It  is  no  doubt,  but  that  holy  jDcrson  continued 
a  strict  and  most  pious  communion  with  God,  during  his  wan- 
derings upon  the  mountains  and  in  the  wilderness  ;  but  still  he 
found  in  himself,  that  he  had  not  those  kindly,  warm  meltings 
upon  his  heart,  those  raptures,  and  ravishing  transports  of 
ajffection,  that  he  used  to  have  in  the  fixed  and  solemn  j)lace  of 
God's  worship.  See  the  two  first  verses  of  the  Ixiii.  Psalm,  en- 
titled, "  A  psalm  of  David,  when  he  was  in  the  wilderness  of 
Judah,"  how  emphatically  and  divinely  does  every  word  pro- 
claim the  truth  that  I  have  been  speaking  of!  "  O  God,"  says 
he,  "  thou  art  my  God ;  early  will  I  seek  thee  :  my  soul  thirst- 
eth  for  thee,  my  flesh  longeth  for  thee  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  land, 
where  no  water  is  ;  to  see  thy  power  and  thy  glory,  so  as  I  have 
seen  thee  in  the  sanctuary."  Much  diflferent  was  his  wish  from 
that  of  our  nonconforming  zealots  now-a-days,  which  expresses 
itself  in  another  kind  of  dialect ;  as  "  When  shall  I  enjoy  God 
as  I  used  to  do  at  a  conventicle  ?"  "  When  shall  I  meet  with 
those  blessed  breathings,  those  heavenly  hummings  and  haw- 
ings,  that  I  used  to  hear  at  a  private  meeting,  and  at  the  end 
of  a  table  ?" 

We  can  neither  love  nor  respect  South.  "  God  will  not 
accept  their  barn-worship,  nor  their  hogsty  worship  ;"  all 
Puritans  are  "  sly,  sanctified  cheats  ;  they  are  all  a  com- 
pany of  cobblers,  tailors,  draymen,  drunkards,  whoremon- 
gers, and  broken  tradesmen  ;  though  since,  I  confess,  dig- 
nified with  the  title  of  the  sober  part  of  the  nation."  The 
audience  no  doubt  laughed  at  all  this  rubbish,  but  it  does 
not  seem  to  me  to  be  either  elegant  or  witty  ;  some  things 
are  more  disgusting  still,  as  when  the  execution  of  the  King 
is  compared  to  the  execution  of  Christ,  which  it  transcended 
in  iniquity,  since  the  murder  of  Christ  was  but  His  mur- 
der, but  the  execution  of  the  King  was  the  crucifixion  of 


268  Wit^  IIumoi\  etc.^  in  the  Pulpit. 

Christianity  itself.  I  push  away  the  great  droll  and  wit  of 
the  pulpit  of  the  Restoration,  and  do  not  care  to  make  his 
further  acquaintance. 

The  greatest  of  aU  the  wits  and  satirists  of  the  pulpit  we 
have  known  was  the  great  Spanish  orator,  Antony  of  Vieyra  ; 
Spanish  wit  and  humor,  that  wit  and  satire  of  the  keen 
Damascus  blade  ;  the  wit  of  Quevedo  or  of  Cervantes  shone 
from  him  in  a  sustained  and  instructive  manner,  unlike  any 
other  great  pulpit  master  we  can  mention,  and  he  dealt  with 
the  sias  and  vices  of  his  age,  in  an  age  of  especial  vice,  with 
searching  and  scathing  severity.  There  is  nothing  of  the 
coarse  buffoon,  or  the  low  droll  in  any  of  these  sermons, 
take  for  iustance,  the  celebrated 

SERMON   TO   THE   FISEEES. 

What !  and  are  we  to  preach  to-day  to  the  fishes  ?  No  audience 
can  be  worse.  At  least  fishes  have  two  good  qualities  as  hearers 
— they  can  hear,  and  they  cannot  speak.  One  thing  only  might 
discourage  the  preacher — that  fishes  are  a  kind  of  race  who 
cannot  be  converted.  But  this  circumstance  is  here  so  very 
ordinary,  that  from  custom  one  feels  it  no  longer.  For  this 
cause,  I  shall  not  speak  to-day  of  heaven  or  of  hell;  and  thus 
this  sermon  will  be  less  gloomy  than  mine  are  usually  considered, 
from  putting  men  continually  in  remembrance  of  these  two  ends. 

To  begin,  then,  with  your  praises,  fishes  and  brethren.  I 
might  very  well  tell  you  that,  of  all  living  and  sensitive  creatures, 
you  were  the  first  which  God  created.  He  made  you  before  the 
fowls  of  the  air ;  He  made  you  before  the  beasts  of  the  earth ; 
He  made  you  before  man  himself.  God  gave  to  man  the  mon- 
archy and  dominion  over  all  the  animals  of  the  three  elements, 
and  in  the  charter  in  which  He  honored  him  with  these  powers, 
fishes  are  the  first  named.  "  Let  them  have  dominion  over  the 
fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle." 
Among  all  animals,  fishes  are  the  most  numerous  and  the  largest. 

,    .    .    For  this  reason,  Moses,  the  chronicler  of  the  creation, 


Vieyra^8  Sermon  to  the  Fishes.         269 

while  he  does  not  mention  the  name  of  other  animals,  names  a 
fish  only.  "  God  created  great  whales."  And  the  three  musi- 
cians of  the  furnace  of  Babylon,  brought  forward  in  their  song 
the  name  of  the  same  fish,  with  especial  honor,  "  O  ye  whales 
.  .  bless  ye  the  Lord."  These  and  other  praises,  then,  and  other 
excellences  of  your  creation  and  greatness,  I  might  well,  O  fishes, 
set  before  you ;  but  such  a  matter  is  only  fit  for  an  audience  of 
men  who  permit  themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  these  vanities, 
and  is,  also,  only  suited  to  those  places  where  adulation  is  al- 
lowed, and  not  in  the  pulpit. 

.  .  .  Great  praise  do.  ye  merit,  O  fishes,  for  the  respect  and 
devotion  which  ye  have  had  to  the  preacher  of  the  Word  of  God ; 
and  so  much  the  more,  because  ye  did  not  exhibit  it  once  only. 
Jonah  went  as  a  preacher  of  the  same  jGrod,  and  was  on  board  a 
ship  when  that  great  tempest  arose.  How  did  men  then  treat 
him,  and  how  did  fishes  treat  him  ?  Men  cast  him  into  the  sea, 
to  be  eaten  by  fishes  ;  and  the  fish  which  followed  him  carried 
him  to  the  shores  of  Nineveh,  that  he  might  there  preach,  and 
save  those  men.  Is  it  possible  that  fishes  should  assist  in  the 
salvation  of  men,  and  that  men  should  cast  into  the  sea  the  min- 
isters of  salvation  ?  Behold,  fishes — and  avoid  vain-glory — how 
much  better  are  ye  than  men.     .     . 

.  .  .  Aristotle,  speaking  of  fishes,  says,  that  they  alone,  among 
all  animals,  can  neither  be  tamed  nor  domesticated.  .  .  .  There 
they  live,  in  their  seas  and  rivers  ;  there  they  die  in  their  foun- 
tains ;  there  they  hide  themselves  in  their  grottoes :  and  none 
among  them  is  so  large  as  to  trust  man,  or  so  small  as  not  to 
avoid  him.  Authors  usually  condemn  this  characteristic  of 
fishes,  and  attribute  it  to  their  little  docility,  or  exceeding  bru- 
tishness ;  but  I  am  of  a  very  different  opinion.  I  do  not  con- 
demn— on  the  contrary,  I  very  much  praise — this  their  retire- 
ment ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  if  it  were  not  natural  to  them,  it 
would  be  a  proof  of  their  prudence.  Fishes,  by  how  much  the 
further  from  men,  by  so  much  the  better.  Hate  conversation  and 
familiarity  with  them.  God  preserve  you  from  it !  If  the  beasts 
of  the  earth  and  the  birds  of  the  air  choose  to  be  man's  familiars, 
let  them  do  it  and  welcome :  it  is  at  their  own  expense.  Let  the 
nightingale  sing  to  man :  but  it  must  be  in  her  cage.    Let  tlio 


270  Wit,  Humor,  etc.^  in  the  Pulpit. 

parrot  talk  to  him :  but  it  must  be  with  her  chain.  Let  the 
hawk  go  to  the  chase  with  him :  but  it  must  be  in  her  jesses. 
Let  the  ape  play  the  buffoon  for  him :  but  it  must  be  with  his 
ring.  Let  the  dog  content  himself  with  gnawing  his  bone :  but 
he  must  be  dragged  where  he  likes  not,  by  his  collar 

In  the  time  of  Noah  happened  that  flood  which  covered  and 
dro^Tied  the  world  ;  and  of  all  animals,  which  fared  the  best  ? 
Of  lions,  only  two  escaped — a  lion  and  a  lioness ;  and  so  of  other 
beasts.  Of  eagles,  two  only  escaped,  the  male  and  the  female ; 
and  so  of  other  birds.  And  of  the  fishes  ?  All  escaped  ;  nay, 
and  not  only  all  escaped,  but  were  much  more  at  liberty  than  be- 
fore :  because  the  land  and  the  sea  were  then  all  sea.  If,  then, 
in  that  universal  chastisement  all  the  beasts  of  the  earth  and  all 
the  birds  died,  why  did  not  the  fishes  also  die?  St.  Ambrose 
says,  because  the  other  animals,  as  more  domestic,  and  more 
nearly  allied,  had  greater  communication  with  men ;  the  fishes 
lived  at  a  distance,  and  retired  from  them.  .  .  .  See,  fishes,  of 
how  great  benefit  it  is  to  live  at  a  distance  from  men.  A  great 
philosopher,  being  asked  which  was  the  best  country  in  the 
world,  replied,  "  That  which  has  the  largest  portion  of  desert : 
because  it  has  men  at  the  greatest  distance."  If  St.  Antony 
preached  this,  also,  to  you,  and  if  this  was  one  of  the  benefits  for 
which  he  exhorted  you  to  give  thanks  to  God,  he  might  well 
have  asserted  with  respect  to  himself,  that,  the  more  he  sought 
God,  the  more  he  fled  from  man.  .  .  . 

But  before  you  depart,  as  you  have  heard  your  praises,  hear 
also  that  which  I  have  to  blame.  It  will  serve  to  make  you 
ashamed,  though  you  have  not  the  power  of  amendment.  The 
first  thing  which  does  not  edify  me  in  you,  fishes,  is,  that  you 
eat  one  another.  A  great  scandal  in  itself,  but  the  circumstances 
make  it  worse.  You  not  only  eat  one  another,  but  the  great  eat 
the  little.  If  the  contrary  were  the  case,  the  evil  would  be  less. 
If  the  little  ate  the  great,  one  would  suffice  for  many  ;  but  as  the 
great  eat  the  little,  a  hundred — nay,  and  a  thousand — do  not  suf- 
fice for  one.  ...  St.  Augustine,  who  preached  to  men,  in  order 
to  set  forth  the  atrocity  of  this  scandal,  jpointed  it  out  to  them 
in  fishes ;  and  I,  who  preach  to  the  fishes,  in  order  to  show  how 
abominable  is  the  custom,  wish  that  you  should  look  at  men. 


The  Sermon  to  the  Mslies,  271 

Look,  fishes,  from  the  sea  to  the  land.  No,  no,  it  is  not  that 
way  that  I  mean.  Are  you  turning  your  eyes  to  the  forests  and 
to  the  interior  ?  Here,  here !  it  is  to  the  city  you  must  look. 
Do  you  think  it  is  only  the  Tarpongas  that  eat  each  other  ?  The 
shambles  here  are  much  larger ;  white  men  eat  each  other  far 


Is  any  one  of  them  dead  ?  See  how  they  all  fall  upon  the  mis- 
erable man,  to  tear  him  in  pieces  and  to  eat  him.  His  heirs  de- 
vour him ;  his  legatees  devour  him ;  his  executors  devour  him ; 
his  creditors  devour  him;  the  commissioners  of  orphans,  of  the 
dead,  and  of  the  absent  devour  him  ;  the  physician  who  helped 
to  kill  him  devours  him ;  his  wife  herself  devours  him,  when 
she  gives  him  for  a  shroud  the  oldest  sheet  in  the  house  ;  he  is 
devoured  by  the  grave-digger ;  by  the  bell-ringer ;  by  those  that 
sing  as  they  carry  him  to  the  grave  :  in  fine,  the  i^oor  dead  man 
is  not  yet  swallowed  up  by  the  earth,  but  he  is  already  swallowed 
up  by  its  inhabitants.     *    *    * 

With  the  flying-fish,  I  must  also  have  a  word :  and  my  com- 
plaint is  not  a  trifling  one.  Tell  me — did  not  God  make  you 
fish  ?  and  why,  then,  do  you  set  up  to  become  birds  ?  God 
made  the  sea  for  you,  and  the  air  for  them.  Content  yourselves 
with  the  sea,  and  with  swimming,  and  do  not  attempt  to  fly.  .  . 
You  seek  to  be  better  than  other  fishes  ;  and  for  this  reason  you 
are  worse  off  than  any.  Other  fishes  of  the  deep  are  taken  with 
the  hook,  or  the  net ;  you  are  taken  without  hook  or  net,  by  your 
own  presumption,  and  your  own  caprice.  The  ship  pursues  its 
course ;  the  mariners  are  sleeping ;  and  the  flying-fish  touches 
the  sail,  or  the  rigging,  and  falls  on  to  the  deck.  Other  fishes 
are  killed  by  hunger,  or  deceived  by  the  bait ;  the  fl}ing-fish  is 
killed  by  the  vain  desire  of  fiying,  and  his  bait  is  the  wind. 
How  much  better  it  were  to  dive  beneath  the  keel,  and  to  live, 
than  to  fly  above  the  yards,  and  to  die  !  It  is  a  great  proof  of 
ambition  that,  the  sea  being  so  immense,  the  whole  ocean  does 
not  suffice  to  so  small  a  fish,  but  he  must  needs  desire  a  larger 
element.  But  see,  fishes,  the  chastisement  of  ambition.  The 
flying-fish  was  made  by  God  a  fish ;  he  desired  to  be  a  bird : 
and  God  permits  he  should  have  the  perils  of  a  fish,  and  besides 
that,  those  of  a  bird.  .  .  . 


272  Wity  Humor,  etc.,  in  the  Pulpit. 

From  this  example,  fishes,  keep,  all  of  you,  this  truth  in  mind. 
He  that  desires  more  than  befits  him,  loses  that  which  he 
desires,  and  that  which  he  has.  He  that  can  swim,  and  de- 
sires to  fly,  the  time  will  come  when  he  shall  neither  fly  nor 
swim.  .  .  . 

With  this  last  remark  I  bid  you  farewell,  or  allow  you  to  bid 
me  farewell,  my  fishes.  And  that  in  departing,  you  may  receive 
some  consolation  from  this  sermon  (for  I  know  not  when  you 
will  hear  another),  I  wish  to  remove  from  you  a  very  ancient 
grievance  under  which  you  have  lain  from  the  time  that  the 
book  of  Leviticus  was  published.  In  the  Ecclesiastical  law, 
God  chose  certain  animals  w^hich  should  be  sacrificed  to  Him  ; 
but  they  were  all,  either  beasts  of  the  earth  or  birds — fishes 
being  totally  excluded  from  these  sacrifices.  Who  doubts  that 
this  universal  exclusion  would  be  the  cause  of  great  disquietude 
and  sorrow  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  so  noble  an  element  which 
afibrds  the  matter  for  the  first  Sacrament  ?  The  principal  mo- 
tive for  the  exclusion  of  fishes,  was  this  :  Other  animals  can  go 
alive  to  the  sacrifice,  but  fishes,  not  so ;  and  God  desires  not 
that  any  dead  thing  should  be  ofiered  to  Him,  or  should  ap- 
proach His  Altar.  This  point  would  be  very  important  and 
necessary  to  men,  if  I  were  preaching  to  them.  O,  how  many 
souls  approach  to  that  Altar  in  a  state  of  death,  because  they 
approach,  and  are  without  a  fear  of  approaching,  in  mortal  sin. 
Fishes,  give  great  thanks  to  God,  that  he  has  delivered  you 
from  this  peril ;  far  better  is  it  not  to  approach  to  the  sacrifice, 
than  to  approach  to  it  in  a  state  of  death.  .  .  . 

O  ye  whales,  and  all  that  move  in  the  waters,  bless  ye  the 
Lord.  Praise  God,  O  fishes,  both  small  and  great ;  .separate 
yourselves  in  two  choirs  and  praise  Him  with  one  accord. 
Praise  God,  because  He  has  created  you  in  such  numbers ;  be- 
cause He  has  distinguished  you  in  so  many  species  :  because 
He  has  invested  you  with  such  variety  and  beauty :  because  He 
has  furnished  you  with  all  the  instruments  necessary  to  life ; 
because  He  has  given  you  an  element  so  large  and  so  pure ; 
praise  God,  Who  coming  into  this  world,  lived  amongst  you, 
and  called  to  Him  those  who  lived  with  you  and  of  you ;  praise 
God  Who  sustains  you,  praise  God  Who  preserves  you,  praise 


m' 


The  Pulpit  Droll ^  Ahraliam  Sancta  Clara,  273 

God  Who  multiplies  you;  praise  God  finally,  by  serving  and 
sustaining  man,  which  is  the  end  to  which  He  created  you ; 
and  as  at  the  beginning  He  gave  you  His  blessing,  so  may  He 
bestow  it  on  you  now.  Amen.  As  you  are  not  capable  of 
grace  nor  of  glory,  so  your  sermon  neither  ends  with  grace  nor 
with  glory. 

If  Antony  of  Yieyra  was  the  greatest  satirist,  Abraham 
Sancta  Clara  was  the  greatest  droll ;  yet  he  was  descended 
from  noble  ancestors,  near  the  City  of  Moskirch  in  Suabia. 
He  belonged  to  the  order  of  Barefooted  Augustine  Monks  ; 
his  fame  was  made  as  the  preacher  to  the  Convent  of 
Dachall,  in  Bavaria.  In  1669,  he  became  Imperial  court 
preacher  to  Leopold  I.,  and  filled  that  office  for  twenty 
years  ;  he  died  in  1709.  He  was,  although  the  preacher 
to  the  Court,  an  orator  of  the  people,  his  humor  was  of  the 
very  broadest  character  ;  he  has  been  called  "a  clerical 
zany,'*  yet  he  is  also  said  to  have  had  a  genuine  enthu- 
siasm for  virtue  and  rehgion,  he  had  "  a  complete  mastery 
of  languages,  a  great  "  affluence  of  imager}^,  a  briUiant  wit, 
an  animated  deliver}^,  and  excoriating  satire."  He  seems 
to  have  been  a  good  and  useful  man,  and  yet  who  can 
commend  such  a  deliverance  as  the  following  ? 

THE   PRODIGAL    SON. 

Of  what  country  the  prodigal  son  was,  is  not  precisely 
known ;  but  I  believe  he  was  an  Irishman.  What  his  name 
was,  is  not  generally  understood ;  but  I  believe  it  was  Malefa- 
civs.  From  what  place  he  took  his  title  (seeing  he  was  a 
nobleman),  has  not  yet  been  discovered ;  but  I  believe  it  was 
Maidsberg  or  Womenham.  What  was  the  device  in  his  coat  of 
arms,  no  one  has  described  ;  but  I  believe  it  was  a  sow's  stomach 
in  a  field  verd. 

This  chap  travelled  with  well-larded  purse  through  various 
countries  and  provinces,  and  returned  no  better  but  rather 
worse.  So  it  often  happens  still,  that  many  a  noble  youth  has 
his  travels  changed  to  travails.  Not  s'eldom  also,  he  goes  forth 
a  good  German  and  returns  a  bad  Herman.  What  honor  or 
12* 


274         ^^*^?  Humor ^  etc,^  in  the  Pulpit. 

credit  is  it  to  the  noble  river  Danube  that  it  travels  through 
different  lands,  through  Suabia,  Bavaria,  Austria,  Hungary,  and 
at  last  unites  with  a  sow.  The  pious  Jacob  saw",  in  his  journey, 
a  ladder  to  heaven ;  but  alas  !  many  of  our  Quality  jBnd,  in  their 
journeys,  a  ladder  into  hell.  If,  nowadays,  a  man  travel  not,  he 
is  called  a  Jack-in-the-corner  and  one  who  has  set  up  his  rest 
behind  the  stove.  But  tell  me,  dear  half-Germans  !  (for  whole 
Germans  ye  have  long  ceased  to  me)  Is  it  not  true  ?  Ye  send 
your  sons  out  that  they  may  learn  strange  vices  at  great  cost  in 
stranger-lands,  when,  with  far  less  expense,  they  might  be 
acquiring  virtues  at  home.  They  return  with  no  more  point  to 
to  them  than  they  went  out,  except  that  they  bring  home  some 
new  "fashion  of^WTiMace.  They  return  no  more  gallant,  unless 
it  be  that  gallant  comes  from  the  French  galant.  They  return 
more  splendidly  clad,  but  good  habits  were  better  than  to 
be  finely  habited.  New-fashioned  hats,  new-fashioned  peri- 
wigs, new-fashioned  collars,  new-fashioned  coats,  new-fashioned 
breeches,  new-fashioned  hose,  new-fashioned  shoes,  new-fash- 
ioned ribbons,  new-fashioned  buttons,  —  also  new-fashioned 
consciences  creep  into  our  beloved  Germany  through  your 
travels.  Your  fool's  frocks  change  too  with  every  moon  ;  and 
soon  the  tailors  will  have  to  establish  a  university  and  take 
Doctor's  degrees,  and  afterwards  bear  the  title  of  Right-reverend 
Doctors  of  fashion. 

If  I  had  all  the  new  fashions  of  coats  for  four  and  twenty 
years,  I  would  almost  make  a  curtain  before  the  sun  with  them, 
so  that  men  should  go  about  with  lanterns  in  the  day-time.  At 
least,  I  would  undertake  to  hide  all  Turkey  with  them,  so  that 
the  Constantinopolitans  should  think  their  Mahomed  was  play- 
ing blind-the-cat  with  them.  An  old  witch,  at  the  request  of 
king  Saul,  called  the  prophet  Samuel  from  the  dead,  that  he 
might  know  the  result  of  his  arms.  It  will  soon  come  to  pass, 
that  people  will  want  to  call  from  the  dead  the  identical  tailor 
and  master  who  made  the  beautiful  Esther's  garment,  when  she 
was  so  well-pleasing  in  the  eyes  of  Ahasuerus.       *        *        * 

*  *  *  So  the  prodigal  son  learned  but  Jittle  good  in  foreign 
lands.  His  doing  was  wooing  ;  his  thinking  was  drinking  ;  his 
Latin  was  Proficiat^  his  Italian,  Brindlsi^  his  Bohemian,  Sas- 


John  Ber ridge,  275 

dravU  liis  German  Gesegnets  Gott.  In  one  word,  he  was  a  goodly 
fellow  always  mellow,  a  vagrant,  a  lyacchant^  an  amant^  a  turhant^ 
a  distillant^  &c.  Now  he  had  wasted  his  substance  in  foreign 
pro-sdnces  and  torn  his  conscience  to  tatters  as  well  as  his 
clothes.  He  might,  with  truth,  have  said  to  his  father  what 
the  brothers  of  Joseijh  said,  without  truth,  to  Jacob  when  they 
showed  him  the  bloody  coat,  '^fera  pesslma,^''  &c.,  ''an  evil 
beast  hath  devoured  him."  An  evil  beast  devoured  the  prodi- 
gal son ;  an  evil  beast,  the  golden  eagle,  an  evil  beast,  the 
golden  griffin,  an  evil  beast,  the  golden  buck,  an  evil  beast,  the 
golden  bear.  These  tavern-beasts  reduced  the  youngster  to 
that  condition  that  his  breeches  were  as  transparent  as  a  fisher- 
man's net,  his  stomach  shrunk  together  like  an  empty  bladder, 
and  the  mirror  of  his  misery  was  to  be  seen  on  the  sleeve  of  his 
dirty  doublet,  &c.  And  now  when  the  scamp  had  got  sick  of 
the  swine-diet,  more  wholesome  thoughts  came  into  his  mind 
and  he  would  go  straight  home  to  his  old  father  and  seek  a 
favorable  hearing  at  his  feet ;  in  vrliich  he  succeeded  according 
to  his  wish.  And  his  own  father  fell  quite  lovingly  on  the  neck 
of  the  bad  vocativo^  for  which  a  rope  would  have  been  fitter. 
Yea,  he  was  introduced  with  special  joy  and  jubilee  into  the 
paternal  dwelling,  sudden  preparations  were  made  for  a  feast, 
kitchen  and  cellar  were  ]3ut  in  requisition,  and  the  best  and 
fattest  calf  must  be  killed  in  a  hurry  and  cooked  and  roasted. 
Away  with  the  rags  and  tatters  !  and  hurrah  !  for  the  velvet 
coat  and  the  prinked  up  hat  and  a  gold  ring  1  Bring  on  your 
fiddlers  !  allegro  ! 


Some  preachers  have  had  apparently  an  irresistible 
faculty  for  drollery.  The  other  day  I  went  over  to  Everton 
to  look  at  the  grave  of  John  Berridge,  one  of  these  men 
upon  whose  lips,  perhaps,  it  became  as  really  sacred  a 
thing — if  the  expression  be  permitted — as  on  those  of  any 
man  gifted  with  such  a  dangerous  faculty.  He  wrote  his 
own  epitaph,  and  here  it  is  itseK  as  plainly  as  any  word  he 
ever  wrote,  reveahng  what  mamier  of  man  the  quaint,  but 
really  earnest  old  vicar  of  Everton  was  : — 


276  Wit,  Humor,  etc.,  in  the  PvJ/pit. 

Here  lie 
The  earthly  remains  of 

Joirsr  Beriiidge, 

Late  Vicar  of  Everton, 

And  an  itinerant  servant  of  Jesus  Christ, 

Who  loved  his  Master  and  His  work, 

And  after  running  on  his  errands  many  years, 

Was  called  up  to  wait  on  Him  above. 

Eeader, 

Art  thou  bom  again  ? 

No  salvation  without  New-Birth  ! 

I  was  born  in  Sin,  February,  1716. 

Remained  ignorant  of  my  fallen  state  till  1730. 

Lived  proudly  on  Faith  and  Works  for  salvation  till  1754. 

Admitted  to  Everton  Vicarage,  1755, 

Fled  to  Jesus  alone  for  Eefuge,  1756. 

Fell  asleep  in  Christ,  January  22nd,  1793. 

But  the  words  of  honest  John  Berridge,  if  they  were 
droll,  were  seasoned  with  the  salt  of  good  conversation, 
which  has  often  been  wanting  to  the  words  of  those  who 
have  indulged  themselves  as  he  did  ;  thus  he  describes  the 
doctrine  of  the  contingency  to  the  promise  of  the  grace  of 
eternal  life  under  the  image  of 

sergeant  if. 

The  doctrine  of  perseverance  affords  a  stable  prop  to  upright 
minds,  yet  lends  no  wanton  cloak  to  corrupt  hearts.  It  brings  a 
cordial  to  revive  the  faint,  and  keeps  a  guard  to  check  the  fro- 
ward.  The  guard  attending  on  this  doctrine  is  Sergeant  If; 
low  in  stature,  but  lofty  in  significance  ;  a  very  valiant  guard, 
though  a  monosyllable.  Kind  notice  has  been  taken  of  the 
Sergeant  by  Jesus  Christ  and  his  apostles ;  and  much  respect  is 
due  unto  him  from  all  the  Lord's  recruiting  ofiicers,  and  every 
Roldier  in  His  army. 

Pray  listeu  to  the  Sergeant's  speech  :  "  If  ye  continue  in  my 
word,  then  are  ye  my  disciples  indeed." — John  viii.  31.  "  If  ye 
do  these  things,  ye  shall  never  fi^]!,"— 3  Peter  i.  10.  "  If  what  ye 
have  heard  shall  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  continue  in  the  Son  and 


Jacob  Kruber.  277 

in  the  Father." — 1  John  ii.  24.  "  We  are  made  partakers  of 
Christ,  IF  we  hold  fast  unto  the  end." — Heb.  iii.  14.  "  Whoso 
looketh  and  continueth  (that  is,  if  he  that  looketh  does  con- 
tinue) in  the  perfect  law  of  liberty,  that  man  shall  be  blessed  in 
his  deed." — James  i.  25. 

Yet  take  notice,  Sir,  that  Sergeant  If  is  not  of  Jewish,  but  of 
Christian  parentage ;  not  sprung  from  Levi,  though  a  son  of 
Abraham ;  no  sentinel  of  Moses,  but  a  watchman  for  the  camp 
of  Jesus. 

But  drollery  in  the  pulpit !  Artemus  Ward  in  the  pulpit ! 
surely  there  is  something  shocking  and  repulsive  in  the 
idea.  Surely  it  is  not  so  that  we  can  conceive  the  Master 
of  preachers  ever  preaching.  Surely  not  so  did  the  apos- 
tles preach.  Not  so  ever  could  they  preach  who  lived  on 
the  confines  of  eternity,  and  there  should  the  preacher  ever 
find  the  home  of  his  thought  and  his  heart ;  to  permit  the 
undisciplined  fancy  to  mount  a  grotesque  idea,  and  set  forth 
prancing  and  curveting,  almost  the  astonishment  and 
laughter  of  an  audience,  whose  lowest  nature  will  no  doubt 
be  tickled  w^hile  the  highest  intentions  of  the  pulpit  are 
thus  entirely  kept  out  of  sight.  Surely  if  the  preacher  who 
goes  into  the  pulpit  to  say  fine  things,  commits  a  great  sia, 
not  less  does  he  sin  who  turns  the  pulpit  into  a  booth,  on 
whose  boards  he  gives  forth  his  queer,  extravagant  and 
droll  things,  for  drollery  is  satire  on  the  hps  of  the  clown  ; 
it  is  truth  degraded  to  the  party  colors  of  the  harlequin,  or 
the  buskin  of  the  fool,  gxinning  to  make  the  multitude 
grill ;  yet  nature  will  come  on  the  lips  of  men  who  love  to 
be  at  the  mercy  of  their  own  fancies.  This  also  must  be 
said  in  defence  of  some  of  these  children  of  humor,  whose 
lives  were  nevertheless  holy  and  sanctified,  that  the  droll 
things  abide  in  the  memory  of  the  audience,  when  the  seri- 
ous things,  and  even  the  intentions  and  lessons  of  the  droll 
things  themselves  are  forgotten  and  pass  away.  Such  a 
preacher  was  Jacob  Kruber  of  America  ;  he  seemed  to  riot 


278  Witj  Humor,  etc.,  in  tlie  Pulpit 

in  the  pulpit,  and  become  intoxicated  upon  tlie  schnapps  of 
his  own  free  humor  :  perhaps  he  was  the  Eowland  Hill  of 
his  country  and  his  denomination.  When  in  Huntingxlon, 
U.  S.,  the  Uniyersahsts,  who  had  become  a  large  body 
there  beneath  the  teaching  and  leadership  of  a  person 
named  Crow — and  who  were  influenced  by  the  flattering- 
doctrine,  that  men  and  women  dying  unconverted  in  this 
world,  would  be  converted  in  the  next — came  with  their 
preacher  in  thronging  multitudes  to  hear  and  to  mock  him. 
After  a  strong  assault  upon  the  doctrine  itseK,  he  exclaimed, 
*'  Now  any  man  who  could  conceive  such  a  thing  must  be 
born  in  a  crow's  nest,  and  he  must  have  been  brought  up 
in  a  crow's  nest,  as  he  never  could  get  up  any  higher. 
He  must  have  been  fed  on  dry  bones,  without  any  meat  on 
them  or  marrow  in  them.  Lord,  stir  up  this  crow's  nest ! 
Lord !  the  crow  is  a  very  ugly  bird  ;  it  is  all  black — make 
it  white.  It  has  a  very  harsh  croaking  noise — Lord,  j)ut  a 
new  song  in  its  mouth,  even  praise  to  our  God.  Lord,  give 
it  wings,  that  it  may  fly  away  to  the  third  heavens  and  be 
converted  ;"  and  we  read  that  such  poor  drollery  shot  poor 
Crow.  Kruber,  like  most  of  these  droll  men,  had  as  much 
horror  of  anything  graceful  in  a  sermon  as  he  had  of  any- 
thing attractive  and  beautiful  in  a  di*ess,  and  he  took  real 
pleasure  in  trying  how  rough  and  uncouth  he  could  be  in 
his  expressions  in  the  pulpit.  The  Latter  day  Saints  told 
him  their  meat  was  too  strong  for  him  ;  he  said,  "  Yes,  it 
is  very  strong !  it  is  tainted ;  go  and  bury  it,  that  it  may 
not  poison  any  person."  Then  he  suggested  a  change  of 
two  words  in  the  designation  of  theu^  sect,  instead  of  "  day," 
say  "night;"  and  instead  of  "  samts,"  say  "owls."  Cau- 
tioning against  the  rehance  on  conversion,  however  clear 
and  satisfactory  —  instead  of  aimuig  at  daily  growth  in 
grace,  he  exclaimed,  "  some  people  believe  if  you  are  onc(5 
converted,  you  are  just  as  safe  as  if  already  in  heaven — and 
the  door  shut,  and  the  hey  lost.''     Perhaps  few  of  oiu' 


Jacob  Kruher. 


279 


readers  have  ever  seen,  and  mil  have  no  objection  to  read 
his  satire  upon  fashionable  preachers,  and  their  modes  of 
meeting  and  helping  in  cases  of  conversion. 

lie  chose  for  his  subject  the  conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus. 
Ananias,  who  resided  at  Damascus,  was  made  to  represent  the 
vclvet-hpped  modern  preacher.  He  thus  introduced  the  subject : 
"  A  great  many  years  ago  a  bold  blasphemer  was  smitten  by  con- 
viction when  he  was  on  his  way  to  Damascus  to  persecute  the 
Christians.  He  was  taken  to  Damascus  in  great  distress. 
Ananias,  after  hearing  of  the  concern  of  mind  under  which  Saul 
was  laboring,  started  out  to  find  him.  It  seems  that  he  was 
stopping  at  the  house  of  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Judas,  not 
Judas  Iscariot,  for  that  person  had  been  dead  several  years.  The 
residence  of  this  gentleman  was  in  the  street  which  was  called 
Strait.  I  suppose  it  was  the  main  street  or  Broadway  of  the 
city,  and  hence  it  was  not  difficult  to  find.  Arriving  at  the  man- 
sion he  rang  the  bell,  and  soon  a  servant  made  her  appearance. 
He  addressed  her  thus :  "  Is  the  gentleman  of  the  house,  Mr. 
Judas,  within  ?"  "Yes,  sir,"  responded  the  servant,  " he  is  at 
liome."  Taking  out  a  glazed,  gilt-edged  card,  on  which  was 
printed,  Rev.  Mr.  Ananias,  he  handed  it  to  the  servant  and  said : 
"  Take  this  card  to  him  quickly."  Taking  a  seat,  with  his  hat, 
cane,  and  gloves  in  his  left  hand,  his  right  being  engaged  in  ar- 
ranging his  classical  curls,  so  as  to  present  as  much  of  an  intel- 
lectual air  as  possible,  he  awaited  an  answer.  Presently  Mr. 
Judas  makes  his  appearance,  whereupon  Mr.  Ananias,  rises,  and 
making  a  graceful  bow,  says  :  "  Have  I  the  honor  to  address  Mr. 
Judas,  the  gentleman  of  the  house  V  "  That  is  my  name,  sir; 
please  be  seated."  "  I  have  called,  Mr.  Judas,  to  inquire  if  a 
gentleman  by  the  name  of  Mr.  Saul,  a  legate  of  the  high  priest 
at  Jerusalem,  is  a  guest  at  your  house."  "  Yes,  sir  ;  Mr.  Saul  is 
in  his  chamber,  in  very  great  distress  and  trouble  of  mind.  He 
was  brought  here  yesterday,  having  fallen  from  his  horse  a  few 
miles  from  the  city  on  the  Jerusalem  road.  "  Oh  !  I  am  very 
sorry  to  hear  of  so  painful  an  accident.  I  hope  he  is  not 
dangerously  wounded."  "  No,  sir,  I  think  not,  though  the  fall 
has  affected  his  sight  very  much,  and  he  complains  considerably 
and  prays  a  good  deal."    "  Well,  I  am  very  sorry ;  but  that  is  not 


28  o  Wit  J  Humor  ^  etc.^  in  the  Pulpit, 

very  strange,  as  I  believe  he  belongs  to  that  sect  of  Jews  called 
Pharisees,  who  make  much  of  j^raying.  How  long  since  he  re- 
ceived this  fall,  Mr.  Judas  ?  About  three  days  since,  and  all  the 
time  he  has  not  taken  any  refreshment  or  rest."  *'  Indeed !  you 
don't  say  so  !  he  must  be  seriously  hurt.  May  I  be  permitted  to 
see  Mr.  Saul  ?  "  I  will  ascertain  his  pleasure,  Mr.  Ananias,  and 
let  you  know  if  you  can  have  an  interview."  After  being  gone 
a  short  time  Mr.  Judas  return,  and  says  :  "  Mr.  Saul  will  be  much 
pleased  to  see  you."  When  he  is  ushered  into  his  presence  Saul 
is  reclining  on  his  couch  in  a  room  partially  darkened.  Ap- 
proaching him,  Ananias  says  :  "  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Saul  ?  I 
understood  you  had  done  our  city  the  honor  of  a  visit.  Hope 
you  had  a  pleasant  journey.  How  did  you  leave  all  the  friends 
at  Jerusalem  ?  How  did  you  leave  the  high  pnest  ?  We  have 
very  fine  weather,  Mr.  Saul.  I  thought  I  would  call  and  pay  my 
respects  to  you,  as  I  was  very  anxious  to  have  some  conversation 
with  you  on  theological  subjects.  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  hear 
of  the  accident  that  happened  to  you  in  visiting  our  city,  and 
hoj)e  you  will  soon  recover  from  your  indisjDosition." 

No  man  sinned  more  in  this  way  than  the  celebrated 
ErOTvxAND  Hill.  He  also  was  a  droll  in  the  pulpit.  We 
have  heard  him  indulging  in  excursions,  in  his  extreme  old 
age,  which  we  suppose  would  scarcely  be  tolerated  now  ; 
and  many  of  the  anecdotes  recorded  of  him  are  alike  intol- 
erable to  good  sense,  good  taste,  and  Christian  feehng. 
Rambhng  and  digressive,  he  seemed  to  be  at  the  mercy  of 
his  humor,  and  to  follow  it  whithersoever  it  led  him. 
Speaking  to  students  of  Dr.  Bogue's  academy,  he  said  : 

The  Gospel  is  an  excellent  milch-cow,  which  always  gives 
plenty  of  milk  and  of  the  best  quality.  I  never  write  my  ser- 
mons. I  always  trust  to  the  Gospel.  I  first  pull  at  justification, 
then  give  a  plug  at  adoption,  and  afterwards  a  bit  at  santifica- 
tioD,  and  so  on,  till  I  have  in  one  way  or  other  filled  my  pail 
with  Gospel  milk ;  and  if  you  will  only  do  the  same,  young  men, 
depend  upon  it  you  will  make  far  better  ministers  than  you  will 
ever  do  by  writing  your  sermons  and  preaching  from  memory. 

Again,  on  another  occasion,  he  said  : 


^:. 


Rowland  Hill.  281 

The  mere  professor  reminds  me  of  a  sow  that  I  saw  two  hours 
ago  luxuriating  in  her  stye  when  almost  over  head  and  ears  in 
the  mire.  ISTow,  suppose  any  of  you  were  to  take  Bess  (the  sow) 
and  wash  her,  and  suppose  after  having  dressed  her  in  a  silk 
gown,  and  put  a  smart  cap  upon  her  head,  you  were  to  take  her 
into  any  of  your  parlors,  and  were  to  set  her  down  to  tea  in 
company,  she  might  look  very  demure  for  a  time,  and  might 
not  give  even  a  single  grunt ;  but  you  would  observe  that  she 
occasionally  gave  a  sly  look  towards  the  door,  w^hich  showed 
that  she  felt  herself  in  an  uncomfortable  position,  and  the  mo- 
ment she  perceived  that  the  door  was  open  she  would  give  an- 
other proof  of  the  fact  by  running  out  of  the  room  as  fast 
as  she  could.  Follow  the  sow,  with  her  silk  gown  and  her 
fancy  cap,  and* in  a  few  seconds  you  will  find  that  she  has  re- 
turned to  her  stye  and  is  again  wallowing  in  the  mire.  Just  so 
it  is  with  the  unrenewed  man  :  sin  is  his  element ;  and  though 
he  may  be  induced  from  a  variety  of  motives  to  put  on  at  times 
a  show  of  religion,  you  will  easily  perceive  that  he  feels  himself 
to  be  under  unpleasant  restraints,  and  that  he  will  return  to  his 
sins  whenever  an  opportunity  of  doing  so,  unknown  to  his  ac- 
quaintances, presents  itself  to  him. 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  of  Bowland  Hill ;  his  beauty 
and  true  excellence  are  forgotten,  and  only  the  frequent 
coarsenesses  are  now  remembered,  although  Eobert  Hall, 
we  understand,  hyperbolically  said  of  him,  "No  man  has 
ever  drawn,  since  the  days  of  our  Saviour,  such  sublime 
images  from  nature  ;  here  Mr.  Hill  excels  every  other  man." 
He  had  a  rapid  succession  of  many-colored  and  many-shaped 
ideas,  and  of  their  singularity  even  Mr.  Edwin  Sydney  gives 
many  illustrations.  This  was  remarkable  in  his  collection 
sermons.  "There  is,"  he  exclaimed  once,  "a  perpetual 
frost  in  the  pockets  of  some  wealthy  people  ;  as  soon  as 
they  put  their  hands  into  them,  they  are  frozen  and  unable 
to  draw  out  their  purses.  Had  I  my  way,  I  would  hang  all 
misers,  but  the  reverse  of  the  common  mode  ;  I  would  hang 
them  up  by  the  heels,  that  their  money  might  run  out  of 


282  Wity  Humor,  etc,^  in  tlie  Pulpit 

their  pockets,  and  make  a  famous  scramble  for  you  to  pick 
up  and  put  in  the  plate."  On  a  wet  day,  when  a  number  of 
persons  took  shelter  in  his  chapel  during  a  heavy  showier, 
w^hile  he  was  in  the  pulpit,  he  said,  "  Many  people  are 
greatly  blamed  for  making  their  religion  a  cloak  ;  but  I  do 
not  think  those  are  much  better  who  make  it  an  umbrella." 
"When  he  was  told  he  did  not  preach  to  the  elect — upon  an 
early  opportunity,  in  the  pulpit,  he  said,  "I  don't  know 
them,  or  I  would  preach  to  them.  Save  the  goodness  to 
mark  them  with  a  bit  of  chalk,  and  then  I'U.  talk  to  them." 
"I  don't  like  those  mighty  fine  preachers,"  he  said,  "who 
so  beautifully  round  off  aU  theh^  sentences  that  they  are 
sure  to  roll  off  the  sinner's  conscience."  "Never  mind 
breaking  grammar,"  he  said  to  his  excellent  co-pastor,  The- 
ophilus  Jones,  "  if  the  Lord  enables  you  to  break  the  poor 
sinner's  heart."  A  strange  illustration  he  gave  when  he  in- 
troduced his  sermon  on  the  text^  "  We  are  not  ignorant  of 
his  devices  : " 

Many  years  since  I  met  a  drove  of  pigs  in  one  of  the  streets  of 
a  large  town,  and  to  my  surprise  they  were  not  driven,  but  quietly 
followed  their  leader.  This  singular  fact  excited  my  curiosity  ; 
and  I  pursued  the  swine,  until  they  all  quietly  entered  the  butch- 
ery :  I  then  asked  the  man  how  he  succeeded  in  getting  the  poor 
stupid,  stubborn  pigs  so  willingly  to  follow  him,  when  he  told 
me  the  secret :  He  had  a  basket  of  beans  under  his  arm  ;  and 
kept  dropping  them  as  he  proceeded,  and  so  secured  his  object. 
Ah  1  my  dear  hearers,  the  devil  has  got  his  basket  of  beans,  and 
he  knows  how  to  suit  his  temptations  to  every  sinner.  He  drops 
them  by  the  way, — the  poor  sinner  is  thus  led  captive  by  the 
devil  at  his  own  will ;  and  if  the  grace  of  God  prevent  not,  he 
will  get  him  at  last  intoliis  butchery,  and  there  he  will  keep  liim 
for  ever.  Oh,  it  is  because  "  we  are  not  ignorant  of  liis  de- 
vices," that  we  are  anxious  this  evening  to  guard  you  against 
them. 

The  illustration  is  not  very  elegant,  but  it  would  tell  on 


''Bold  '  Tom  Bradbury:  ''  283 

many  rude  natures  ;  it  was  Scriptural— it  was  human,  and 
true. 

"  God/'  says  an  old  Scotch  divine,  .quoted  by  WilHam 
Jay,  had  but  one  only  begotten  son,  and  he  made  a  loreacher 
of  Him  ; "  the  truth  of  which  remark  may  perhaps  be  al- 
lowed to  atone  for  its  homehness.  The  preacher  who 
constantly  remembers  this  will  perhaps  be  saved  from  these 
really  sinful  escapades  and  follies  of  speech,  which  call  to 
mind  the  remark  that  there  is  a  gxeat  difference  between 
what  St.  .Paul  calls  "the  foolishness  of  preaching"  and 
foolish  preaching. 

Dean  Eamsay  tells  a  story  of  some  old  Scottish  lady  who, 
while  mourning  over  the  moral  state  of  one  of  her  relatives, 
exclaimed,  "  Our  John  swears  awfu' ;  and  we  try  to  correct 
him  ;  but,"  she  added,  in  a  candid  and  apologetic  tone, 
"nae  doubt  it  is  a  great  set-aff  to  conversation."  It  seems 
to  be  so  even  with  pulpit  drollery  and  humor.  It  is  very 
much  condenmed,  but  no  doubt  it  is  a  great  set-off  to  the 
pulpit.  It  has  been  said,*  "  In  every  denomination  there 
will  occasionally  spring  up  a  '  Tom  Bradbury,'  preaching 
with  eccentricity  enough,  and  droUery  enough  to  afflict  the 
Chm^ch  and  to  amuse  the  world.  Billy  Dawson  was  one  of 
this  stamp."  The  writer  can  know  neither  the  one  preacher 
nor  the  other  to  whom  he  refers.  I  glanced,  as  I  read  this, 
to  the  eleven  volumes  of  the  Sermons  of  Bkadbury  ;  The 
Great  Mystery  of  Godhness,  and  the  Christus  in  Coelo,  and 
felt  that  some  wonderful  injustice  had  been  done  to  his 
memory  ;  his  wit  and  humor  were  like  the  wit  and  humor 
of  South,  but  seem  to  have  been  more  rich  and  genial  ; 
they  were  not  consecrated  to  flatter  a  corrupt  court  and 
triumphant  cause,  and  did  not  at  all  mar  the  ample  knowl- 

*"  Punch  in  the  Pulpit;  or,  the  Danger  of  Novelties  and  other 
Improprieties  in  Heligion,  and  especially  of  Jocularity  in  the  House 
of  God.'*  By  Philip  Cater,  i^uthor  of  ''The  Great  Fiction  of  the 
Times."    Printed  for  the  Author. 


284  ^^^1  Humor,  etc.,  in  the  Pulpit 

edge,  and  soiind  and  lofty  views  of  evangelical  truth  and 
copious  acquaintance  vdtli  Scripture  by  wliich  he  dehghted 
his  hearers  :  even  iiis  celebrated  sermon,  "  The  Ass  and  the 
Serpent,"  contains  httle  that  the  fastidious  of  our  day  could 
condemn.  He  hated  the  Stuarts,  and  in  his  sermons  he 
maintained  at  once  with  indignation  and  humor,  the  right 
of  a  people  to  resist  tyrants. 

But  "  Tom  Bradbury  "  has  some  sms  to  answer  for  ; 
even  if  he  deserves  to  live  in  the  honor  and  esteem  of  men 
to  whom  civil  and  rehgious  liberty  are  blessings.  Queen 
Anne  was  wont  to  call  him  '*  bold  Bradbui-y."  Few  per- 
sons, it  is  said,  had  a  greater  share  in  promoting  the  suc- 
cession of  the  house  of  Hanover.  It  is  also  said,  that  upon 
Queen  Anne's  death,  he  preached  from  the  text,  "  Go,  see 
now  this  cursed  woman,  and  bury  her,  for  she  is  a  king's 
daughter  :  "  it  was  he  who  was  wont  to  express  his  dislike 
of  Dr.  "Watts'  psalms  by  saying  "  Let  us  have  none  of  Dr. 
Watts'  Vfhims"  In  fact,  he  was  the  South  of  the  Noncon- 
formists, but  he  had  incomparably  more  decency  than  that 
disagreeable  time-server. 

Wilham  Dawson  may,  perhaps,  seem  to  be  nearer  to  the 
above  author's  idea  of  Punch  in  the  pulpit,  yet  he  was  a 
master  there,  and  only  disgraceful  ignorance  can  so  insult 
his  memory.  He  seldom  indulged  in  droUery  for  its  own 
sake  ;  he  had  immense  power  over  vast  audiences.  We 
have  many  powerful  preachers  hving  now,  but  in  the  power 
of  seK-abandonment  we  have  no  speaker  like  Dawson.  He 
spoke  to  the  people  in  parables ;  he  sometimes  spoke  in 
very  bold,  to  our  thought,  even  in  coarse  imagery  and  lan- 
guage ;  but  the  world  needs  preachers  such  as  he  was. 
And  the  writer  I  have  quoted  finds  Punch  hi  the  pulpit 
during  the  singing  of  many  hymns.  Those  exquisitely 
beautiful  hymns,  *'  AJas !  and  did  my  Saviour  bleed,"  and 
that  most  tender  one,  "The  waves  of  trouble,  how  they 
rise,"  awaken  only  his  disgust.     This    is  called   "queer 


The  Folly  of  Learned  Sermons.         285 

hjonnology."  We  live  indeed  in  hypercritical  times,  when 
such  sweet  and  sacred  notes  of  the  Church  can  be  profaned 
by  such  a  vulgar  designation. 

There  is  no  doubt  plenty  of  cause  for  a  smart  satire  upon 
many  of  the  ways  and  words  of  the  men  of  the  pulpit.  It 
is  a  difficult  thing  to  determine — nothing  can  determine  but 
the  cultivated  and  sanctified  sense  of  the  preacher — the  ex- 
tent to  which  humor  may  be  permitted  in  the  pulpit.  Some 
will  protest  against  its  use  altogether,  but  the  boughs  of 
the  old  elmtree  which  once  shed  its  autumn  leaves  in  St. 
Paul's  Churchyard,  and  which  has  not  been  long  removed, 
w^hile  preserving  to  the  eye  of  memory  the  cross  over  which 
it  waved,  where  stood  the  pulpit,  once  the  most  celebrated 
in  all  England — the  Pulpit  of  St.  Paul's  Cross — defends  the 
use  of  it.  Of  what  that  pulpit  was  we  have  no  resemblance 
now  ;  for,  indeed,  times  have  altered,  and  the  pulpit  work 
is  different ;  that  pulpit  was  The  Times  newspaper  of  its 
day  ;  it  was  far  more,  it  was  the  platform — it  was  the  book 
— the  focal  lens — the  ventilator  of  public  opmion  ;  and  not 
only  true  things,  but  humorous  things,  did  that  useful 
sounding-board  echo  over  the  multitudes.  There  Colet,  the 
learned  Dean — there  Hooker — there  the  grave  and  dignified 
Ridley  ;  and  there,  too,  was  the  most  popular  preacher  of 
them. all — the  anecdotal,  the  witty,  the  fable-loving  and  hu- 
morous Latimer.  If  we  did  not  regret  that  there  is  found 
so  little  freedom  in  the  pulpit,  we  should  rejoice  that  with 
the  multitudes  of  preachers  there  is  so  little  infrmgemeut 
of  the  bounds  of  good  taste.  At  the  same  time  it  is  to  be 
remembered  that  there  is  a  pedantic  Punch  in  the  pulpit, 
as  well  as  a  frolicsome  one,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  which 
of  the  two  is  the  more  irreverent.  Fine  sermons,  learned 
sermons,  metaphysical  sermons,  are  shocking  things.  A 
very  old  writer  has  said  : 

Some  take  a  text  sublime  and  fraught  with  sense, 

But  quickly  fall  into  impertinence. 


^ 


286  Wit  J  HtunoVj  etc.j  in  the  Pulpit. 

On  trifles  eloquent  with  ^reat  delight 

They  flourish  out  on  some  strange  mystic  rite ; 

But  to  subdue  the  passions,  or  direct, 

And  all  life's  moral  duties  they  neglect. 

Most  joreachers  err,  except  the  wiser  few, 

Thinking  established  doctrines,  therefore,  true. 

Others,  too  fond  of  novelty  and  schemes. 

Amuse  the  world  with  airy,  idle  dreams. 

Thus  too  much  faith  or  too  presuming  wit 

Are  rocks  where  bigots  or  freethinkers  split. 

'Tis  not  enough  that  what  you  say  is  true. 

To  make  us  feel  it  you  must  feel  it  too. 

Show  yourself  warm,  and  that  wall  warmth  impart 

To  every  hearer's  sympathising  heart. 

The  style  of  some  preachers  is  quite  as  ludicrous  as  that 
ridiculed  by  Pluche  in  his  History  of  the  Heavens : — 

A  carpenter  who  understood  his  trade,  and  was  in  tolerable 
circumstances,  had  given  his  son  a  good  education,  that  is,  had 
made  him  pass  through  a  course  of  liberal  studies  and  phil- 
osophy. We  know  no  other  method.  The  father  dying  just  as 
the  son  had  gone  through  his  public  disputations,  and  leaving 
some  undertakings  unflnished,  the  young  man  took  a  liking  to 
work,  and  followed  his  father's  profession.  But  he  bethought 
himself  of  recalling  his  art  to  certain  principles,  and  subjecting 
it  to  a  methodical  order.  He  treated  the  whole  in  his  head  as 
he  had  seen  his  masters  treat  the  art  of  reasoning.  At  length 
he  got  together  a  number  of  journeymen  of  the  trade,  and 
promised  to  lead  them  by  a  new  way  to  the  quintessence  of 
carpentry. 

Our  new  doctor,  after  a  long  preamble  on  mechanicks,  which 
he  promised  to  treat  on  by  genus  and  species,  came  to  the  first 
question,  and  very  seriously  examined  whether  there  was  a 
principle  of  force  in  man.  He  long  discussed  the  reasons  2^ro 
and  con^  and  at  last  enabled  his  disciples,  knowingly,  and  with- 
out any  apprehension  of  mistake,  to  aflirm  that  man  was  capable 
of  a  certain  degree  of  strength,  and  able  to  communicate  motion, 
for  instance,  to  an  axe,  or  to  a  stone,  if  not  too  great.     He  was 


m 


Humor  OILS  Juxtaposition  of  Ideas.      287 

contented  with  this  modest  assertion,  being  persuaded,  that, 
with  this  small  strength  muUiplied,  he  might,  towards  the  end 
of  his  treatise,  come  to  transporting  the  largest  pieces  of  rough 
marble,  and  to  heaving  of  mountains.  He  next  proceeded  to 
examine  the  place  where  this  force  resided ;  and  after  many- 
disputations  on  the  brains,  the  glandula  pinealis,  the  spirits, 
and  the  muscles,  he,  out  of  economy,  and  for  brevity's  sake, 
determined,  that  the  arm  was  the  chief  agent,  and  the  instru- 
ment of  human  strength. 

In  a  third  paragraph  (for  you  would  have  wondered  how  well 
he  divided  and  put  his  matter  in  order)  the  strength  residing 
in  the  arm  gave  him  occasion  to  examine  all  the  constituent 
pieces  of  the  arm,  and  to  make  an  exact  anatomy  of  it.  He 
made  long  dissertations  on  the  nerves,  muscles,  fibres,  and  de- 
scended to  the  minutest  filaments.  He  multiplied  the  lengths 
of  the  muscles  by  their  breadths,  and  the  product  of  these  by 
the  sum  of  the  fibres.  '  From  one  calculation  to  another  he  came 
to  determine  the  strength  of  each  degree  of  tension,  and,  by 
means  of  these  determinations,  made  himself  able  to  fix  the 
strength  of  percussion.  Thus  he  weighed  a  cuff*,  and  joining 
the  strength  of  the  fist  to  the  sum  of  the  blow  of  a  hammer,  he 
showed  you  the  exact  weight  with  which  this  percussion  was  in 
eqaal  proportion.  Finally,  to  sum  up  his  matters,  and  for  the 
conveniency  of  the  young  carpenters,  he  reduced  this  whole  into 
algebraic  expressions.  • 

The  author's  conclusion  on  the  whole  w^ork  is,  "  that  not  only 
in  point  of  religion,  but  also  in  natural  philosoj^hy,  wc  ought  to 
be  contented  with  the  certainty  of  experience,  and  the  simplic- 
ity of  Revelation."  * 

In  thoughtlessness,  in  sheer  vacant  thoughtlessness, 
some  of  the  effects,  equal  to  the  most  ridiculous  droller)', 
have  their  origin;  like  the  escapade  of  speech  heard  from 
the  Hps  of  a  veiy  holy  minister  by  a  friend  of  our  own,  in 
describing  the  happiness  of  the  heavenly  state : — "  Ok,  my 
friends,  there  Satan  shall  harass  you  no  longer;  there  the 
enemy  of  souls  can  distress  you  no  more,  for  there  you 
*  riuche,  Ill&t.  of  ihe  Heavens,  vol.  ii.  b.  4. 


288  Wit  J  Hiimor^  etc.^  in  the  Pulpit. 

shall  be  like  Him — there  you  shall  see  him  as  He  is."    It 
is  to  be  hoped  all  his  auditors  were  sufficiently  at  home  in 
Scrij3ture,  to  understand  the  extraordinary  juxtaposition   ■ 
of  ideas.* 

But  I  do  not  know  that  any  of  these  strange  develop- 
ments disgust  more,  than  what  results  in  tame  feebleness 
from  the  absence  of  earnestness.  We  have  the  "laced 
coat  of  mere  orthodox  twaddle,"  we  have  men  who  stand 
like  cast-iron  pumps,  and  exercise  then-  preaching  as  a 
kind  of  parish-pump  faculty ;  we  have  somnolence  sleep- 
ing itseK  to  death  ;  and  we  have  the  platitudes  uttered, 
when  men  having  no  voice  in  their  own  conscience,  fail  of 
course  to  reach  the  consciences  of  others. 

*  One  Saturday  afternoon  Robert  Robinson  received  a  visit  from 
the  Rev.  Clement  Carnifex,  who,  at  that  time,  lived  at  *'  Enon,  near 
to  Salim,  because  there  was  much  water  there."  The  following 
dialogue  between  these  t^v^o  men  will  afford  a  still  more  striking 
illustration  of  these  impertinent  allusions  to  the  devil : — 

Clement  Carnifex. — "  I  am  come  from  a  great  distance  to  hear  you 
preach  to-morrow." 

Robert  Eobinson. — "  Then,  brother,  you  shall  preach  for  me." 
C.  C. — "  O  no,  no  ;  I  cannot  preach  in  Mr.  Robinson's  pulpit." 
M.  It. — "  Why  not ;  my  pulpit  is  a  wooden  one  ;  is  not  yours  ?  " 
C.  C. — "Yes,    sir;     but    f  cannot    preach    to    Mr.    Robinson's 
people." 

B.  R. — "  Why  not  ?  my  people  are  like  other  people — some  good, 
some  bad — are  not  yours  ?  " 

a  a—"  Yes,  air." 

R.  R. — "  Well,  then,  I  daresay  the  sermons  last  Sunday  at  home 
would  be  very  suitable.     What  were  they  ?  " 

C.  G. — '*  Why,  in  the  morning  I  preached  from  Esther  vii.  9 — 
*  Hang  him  thereon.' " 

R.  R. — "  Very  well,  brother.  You  had  a  good  opportunity  of 
showing  that  the  wicked  is  snared  in  the  work  of  his  own  hands. 
Did  you  take  it  up  in  that  light,  brother  ?  " 

C.  C — "  No,  sir  ;  I  considered  Haman  as  the  devil,  who  is  always 
endeavoring  to  injure  the  Lord's  people,  and  would  be  glad  to 
destroy  them." 


Strange  Freaks  of  Speech  in  the  FuJ/pit.     289 

You  have  heard  many  sermons  preached  upon  the  pub- 
lican and  pharisee  ;  but  did  you  ever  hear  that  preached 
in  St.  Giles-in-the-Fields.  "  It  was  sad,"  said  the  able  and 
eloquent  preacher,  "  that  any  of  our  fellow  creatures  should 
so  fall,  as  to  stand  in  need  of  such  a  degrading  confession 
as  the  pubHcan's  ;  but  he  besought  his  hearers  to  be  upon 
their  guard,  lest  by  drawing  too  favorably  a  contrast  be- 
tween such  outcasts  and  themselves,  they  incurred  the 
censure  pronounced  on  that  otherwise  most  amiable  char- 
acter, the  pharisee."  And  James  Haldane  mentions,  in 
one  of  his  missionary  tours  in  Scotland,  that  he  heard  a 
minister  solemnly  warn  his  people,  and  he  was  a  minister 
of  the  Scotch  Establishment,  against  putting   any  trust, 

i?.  i2. — "  Very  good,  brother ;  nothing  can  be  more  suitable. 
Here  is  old  Nanny,  the  pew-opener  at  our  place  ;  she  can  never  get 
to  meeting  in  time,  for  she  says  that  the  devil  always  finds  her 
something  or  other  to  do.  Then  there  is  old  Farmer  Jones,  who 
lives  about  three  miles  oflf.  He  says  that  before  he  has  got  half 
way  to  meeting,  the  devil  tells  him  that  somebody  is  breaking  into 
liis  barns,  and  he  is  obliged  to  return.  Now,  brother,  if  you  could 
prove  that  you  have  hanged  the  devil,  nothing  in  the  world  would 
be  more  suitable.  That  will  do  for  the  morning.  Now,  what  is 
the  afternoon  subject,  brother  ?  " 

01  C. — "  Why,  sir,  in  the  afternoon  I  preached  from  2  Kings 
xviii.  36 — *  Answer  him  not.'  " 

i?.  It — '^  Very  well,  brother.  You  have  an  opportunity  of  show- 
ing not  only  that  the  king's  business  requires  haste,  but  that  it  is 
sometimes  good  policy  not  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  State  affairs. 
Did  you  handle  it  that  way,  brother  ?  " 

0.  C. — "  No,  sir.  I  endeavored  to  show  that  the  devil  would  be 
always  harassing  and  distressing  the  dear  people  of  God ;  but  the 
best  way  was  to  pay  no  regard  to  his  temptation.  *  Answer  him 
not  a  word.' " 

i?.  It'—"  Ha !  ha !  brother  ;  that  wDl  never  do.  Now,  in  the 
morning,  you  see,  according  to  your  sermon,  you  hanged  the  devil ; 
that  was  very  fortunate  ;  but  in  the  afternoon  you  brought  him  to 
life  again.  At  any  rate  it  must  be  wrong  for  these  two  subjects  to 
follow  each  other. 

13 


290  Witj  Humor,  etc.,  in  the  P-ulpit. 

wliile  they  continued  sinners,  in  the  blood  of  Chrisi 
"  Kepent,"  said  he,  "  become  righteous,  atone  for  your 
sins  by  probity,  and  virtue,  and  then  if  you  please,  you 
may  look  to  that  blood,  but  not  before."  Widely  different 
all  this  to  the  "warning  every  man,  and  teaching  every 
man,  that  we  may  present  every  man  perfect  in  Christ 
Jesus." 

We  need  not  read  the  celebrated  "  Sermons  to  Asses."* 
We  need  not  go  to  hear  the  Friar  Genmd.f  We  need  not 
listen  to  the  preacher  who  took  for  his  text  "  O,"  and  said 
a  thousand  fine  things  ;  or  that  learned  and  judiciously 
educated  monk,  who,  preaching  upon  the  servant  of  the 
High  Priest  warming  himself,  began,  "  My  brethren,  see 
how  the  evangehst  relates,  not  merely  as  an  liistorian 
would — '  he  warmed  himself,'  but  as  a  philosopher — '  be- 
cause he  was  cold.' "  The  speech  outruns  the  ideas  of 
some  preachers,  as  in  the  instance  cited  by  the  Wyckhamist 
of  a  missionary — describing  the  horrors  of  the  Cafire  war, 
and  its  desolating  effect  on  his  own  estate,  wishing  to  wind 
up  with  a  good  sonorous  cadence,  who  ended  thus,  in  words 
which  certainly  were  remarkable  as  the  experience  of  a 
Hving  man,  "  And  when  I  got  home  to  my  house  I  found 
my  children  fatherless  and  my  wife  a  widow."  We  need 
not  go  for  the  purpose  of  marking  the  humors  of  the  pul- 
pit to  that  repertory,  above  aU  other  repertoires  of  pulpit 
anecdote,  Eobert  Eobinson's  edition  of  "  Claude,"  imless 
to  note  how  admirable  are  his  remarks  upon  vulgarity  in 
the  pulpit ;  and  they  afford  a  reason  for  many  of  Eobin- 
son's own  frequent  lapses  in  that  way. 

Nothing  is  more  necessary  than  self-denial.     Beside  all  that 

*  "  Sermons  to  Asses,  to  Doctors  of  Divinity,  to  Lords  Spiritual, 
and  to  Ministers  of  State."    By  the  Rev.  James  Murray,  1819. 

f  "  The  History  of  the  Famous  Preacher,  Friar  Gerund  de  Cam- 
panzas,  otherwise  Gerund  Zotes."    Translated  from  the  Spanish* 

In  2  vols.,  1772. 


Humorous  Literature  in  the  Pulpit        291 

self-denial,  which  belongs  to  ministers  in  common  with  their 
fellow-Christians,  there  are  exercises  of  it  peculiar  to  divines, 
and  essential  to  the  discharge  of  the  pastoral  office.  Visiting 
and  conversing  with  the  iDoor,  and  allowing  them  to  come  for 
spiritual  advice,  are  articles  of  this  kind.  Can  it  be  imagined, 
that  a  man  of  learning  is  gratified  by  illiterate  conversation  ? 
That  a  polite,  well-bred  man  relishes  the  vulgar,  awkward  rude- 
ness of  clowns  ?  That  men,  who  know  the  worth  of  time,  and 
who  love  study  as  they  love  life,  can  be  pleased  with  interrup- 
tion and  nonsense,  and  long-winded  tales  of  complaint,  which 
begin,  perhaps,  in  an  ale-house  fray,  and  end  in  a  case  of  con- 
science ?  Can  they,  whose  company  is  courted  by  accomplished 
men,  who  would  pour  into  their  bosoms  of  wise  and  pious  con- 
versation good  measure,  pressed  down,  and  shaken  together, 
and  running  over — can  these,  I  ask,  of  choice  spend  half  a  day 
in  searching  for  one  grain  of  wheat  in  a  bushel  of  cliaflf  ?  Yet 
he  who  cannot  submit  to  these  things,  however  qualified  for  a 
nobleman's  domestic  chaplain,  or  for  a  dignitary  in  a  rich 
church,  can  never  make  the  less  splendid  but  more  useful  minis- 
ter of  a  parish,  or  pastor  of  a  flock.  A  poet  may  give  himself 
airs,  toss  his  haughty  head,  take  snufi*,  and  chant — Odi  prof  a- 
num  Vulgus ;  but  the  minister  of  the  meek  and  merciful  Jesus 
must  not  do  so.  He  must  try  to  take  the  ton  of  his  poor  people, 
if  he  would  do  them  real  spiritual  good.  It  will  be  his  glory 
sometimes  to  be  rude  in  speech,  to  conceal  his  abilities,  to  adapt 
himself  to  their  weaknesses,  to  prefer  Bunyan  before  Beza, 
Dodd's  sayings  and  Wright's  poems  before  the  casuistry  of 
Hoadley,  and  the  poetry  of  Milton  or  Young. 

Thus,  also,  some  preachers  are  fond  of  discoursing  on 
the  Book  of  Leviticus,  a  book  needing  a  very  fine  spiritual 
hand  and  insight,  and  capable  of  yielding  glorious  teach- 
ing ;  yet  the  effect  is  usually  bad  because  there  is  no  eye 
for  the  Divine  meaning.  Thus  a  young  clergyman  hearing 
a  minister  preaching  on  the  types,  and  expounding  Leviti- 
cus iii.  3 — "And  he  shall  offer  the  fat  that  covereth  the 
inwards,  and  all  the  fat  that  is  upon  the  inwards,  and  the 
two  kidneys,  and  the  fat  that  is  on  them,  which  is  by  the 


292  Witj  Humor ^  etc,^  in  the  Pitlpit. 

flanks,  and  the  caul  above  the  hver,  with  the  kidneys,  it  he 
shall  take  away  " — it  is  said,  turned  sick  at  the  suggestive 
pictures.  It  is  a  singular  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind,  the  irreverence  of  reverent  men.  The  shelves 
of  our  own  hbrary  give  to  us  John  Stoughton's  (not  our 
excellent  friend  of  Kensington,  but  the  old  1640-man) 
"  Baruch's  Sore  Gently  Opened,  and  the  Salve  Skilfully 
AppHed."  "VVe  have  the  "  Church's  Bowel  Complaint,'* 
"  The  Snuffers  of  Divine  Love."  Then  are  there  not  the 
"  Spiritual  Mustard  Pot  to  Make  the  Soul  Sneeze  with 
Devotion,"  "  A  Pack  of  Cards  to  Win  Christ,"  &c.,  &c.  ? 
Looking  back  upon  these  things,  we  almost  feel  that  our 
age  has  advanced  in  reverence  as  well  as  in  culture. 

Yet  we  wish  we  had  more  freedom  in  the  pulpit.  There 
would  be  more  useful  results  if  ministers  felt  more  and 
spoke  more  openly  and  heartily  ;  if  every  man  had  more 
his  own  style.  If,  in  fact,  the  pulpit  could  be  less  than  it 
is,  it  would  be  rrwre  than  it  is  ;  it  over-rides  far  too  intoler- 
antly other  ministerial  duties.  We  ourselves  speak  much 
of  it,  and  yet  we  long  to  hear  less  of  it.  And  then  it  will 
do  its  work  better,  when  its  words  shall  be  a  flow  of  kindly, 
friendly,  solemn,  cheerful,  thoughtful  talk  :  a  conversation 
with  people,  rather  than  the  sweep  of  a  stately  flight  above 
them,  talking  to  them — which  is  in  sympathy — rather  than 
talking  at  them.  Certainly,  in  the  work  of  the  pulpit,  the 
true  preacher  makes  his  own  work,  and  uses,  by  an  instinct 
deeper  than  his  own  knowledge,  the  kind  of  method  most 
suited  to  his  nature.  Toplady  says,  "  the  painter  chooses 
the  materials  on  which  he  paints — on  wood,  on  glass,  on 
metals,  on  ivory,  on  canvas.  Some  natural  endowments 
are  not  high,  there  the  painting  is  on  wood  ;  others  on 
marble — quick  sensibility  and  poignant  feeling  ;  some  on 
glass,  very  beautiful,  but  especially  dangerous,  since  by 
the  first  stone  of  penetration  they  are  fractured  and 
broken,  and  fall  from  their  first  love.     The   earhest  an- 


TTie  Reader  and  the  Hearer.  293 

donts  painted  only  in  water,  like  hypocrites;  but  God 
paints  in  oil,  accompanying  Himself  the  word  by  unction 
and  by  power." 

And  when  attempts  are  made  either  to  sneer  down  the 
pulpit  ojr  to  hold  it  up  to  ridicule,  the  response  ought  to 
be — that  it  is  really  by  far  the  most  important  means  for 
the  education  of  thought  and  emotion  in  the  hands  of  men. 
It  cannot  be  cared  for  too  much,  or  guarded  too  sedulously. 
It  needs  indeed  to  be  taken  away  from  the  tongue  of  big- 
otry and  formalism — it  needs  to  be  made  less  a  mere 
amusement  and  luxury — more  of  tenderness,  experience, 
teaching — more  of  humanity  in  it ;  and  then  it  wiU  bo 
hailed  as  one  of  the  most  delightful  means  of  cheering  the 
toil  of  the  working-man  with  the  love  of  Jesus,  the  story 
of  the  Cross,  and  the  good  news  from  the  far  country, 
inwrought  with  lessons  and  pictures  of  life,  homely,  pow- 
erful, and  practical,  becoming  at  once  light  to  the  eye  and 
a  power  to  the  conscience. 

Southey  entertains  us  with  a  story  of  a  certain  Quaker 
who  took  a  manuscript  to  Franklin  to  print  and  publish. 
Franklin  looked  over  it,  and  said  to  the  author  that  it  was 
somewhat  deficient  in  arrangement.  "  It's  no  matter,"  said 
the  author,  "print  any  part  thou  pleasest  first."  I  almost 
fear  lest  I  should  seem,  by  the  fragmentary  words  of  this 
lecture,  to  lay  myself  open  to  a  similar  laugh.  The  fault 
is,  perhaps,  that  all  persons  hve  too  exclusively  on  the  life 
of  the  book  or  of  the  speaker.  The  man  who  Kves  on  the 
orator  alone  may  have  his  mental  and  moral  life  destroyed 
by  a  plethora  or  spasm,  if  I  may  not  rather  call  it  a  spon- 
taneous combustion.  The  man,  on  the  contrary,  who  hves 
the  life  of  the  mere  bookman  may  die  of  indigestion. 
There  is  a  danger  of  being  mere  bookmen,  or  else  mere 
hangers-on  at  pubHc  meetings  and  frothy  lecturings.  We 
educate  our  thoughts  by  the  book,  we  enlarge  our  informa- 
tion by  the  book,  we  extend  the  territory  of  our  imaginar 


294         ^^^5  Humor^  etc.,  in  the  Pulpit 

tion  by  the  book  ;  but  we  educate  our  affections  by  sj)eecli, 
we  intensify  our  impulses  by  speech,  we  acquire  the  grace 
of  manner  and  the  feliciiy  of  diction  by  speech,  not  merely 
by  speaking,  but  by  hearing.  The  book  is  for  the  head  ; 
from  the  book  we  must  expect  to  obtain  ideas ;  from  the 
book  we  must  gain  mental  forms  ;  the  book  wiU  surround 
the  spirit  with  all  those  graceful  fictions,  those  ineffable 
charms  of  proverb  and  parable,  which  give  to  the  soul  the 
evergreen  and  the  flower,  as  well  as  the  hardy  fruit.  Speech 
will  give  fire  to  us,  it  will  give  hght  to  us,  such  hght  as 
shines  through  a  vault  when  the  heavens  are  alive  with 
flame.  The  bookman  becomes  a  mere  cold  critic,  watchful 
for  the  shps  of  speech  ;  the  mere  speaker  or  auditor  be- 
comes careless,  save  of  all  that  ministers  to  stirring  sensa- 
tion— by  drollery  or  humor,  rhetoric  or  fancy — ^he  is  care- 
less how  it  comes. 

But  we  must  kindle  the  torch  if  we  intend  to  track  our 
way  through  the  "palpable  obscure."  At  present  our  faith 
is  not  great,  as  a  whole,  either  in  the  book  or  in  speech. 
And  our  age  is  too  critical.  In  these  times  we  seem  to 
have  the  obstinacy  of  the  dogmatist  without  his  weapon  of 
certainty.  That  our  nature  may  be  perfected,  we  must 
permit  the  river  of  speech  to  flow  through  the  ear  into  the 
soul  as  well  as  the  river  of  thought  to  flow  through  the 
eye  into  the  soul.  By  our  homage  to  each  we  shall  find 
our  nature  built  up  and  sustained. 


VIII. 

The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagina- 
tion and  Illustration. 


i 
1 

m 

ENEY  WAED  BEECHEE,  the  most  fertHo 
master  of  varied  illustration  in  our  modern  pul- 
pit, has  a  fine  passage  in  one  of  his  sermons, 
setting  forth  the  extent  to  which  this  wonderful 
provision  is  made  for  us  and  spread  out  for  us  in  the  Bible, 
spreading  out  everywhere  into  types  of  nature  : 

What  if  every  part  of  your  house  should  begin  to  repeat  the 
truths  which  have  been  committed  to  its  symbolism?  The 
lowest  stone  would  say,  in  silence  of  night, "  Other  foundatioDS 
can  no  man  lay."  The  corner-stone  would  catch  the  word, 
"  Christ  is  the  corner-stone."  The  door  would  add,  "  I  am  the 
door."  The  taper  burning  by  your  bedside  would  steam  up  a 
moment  to  tell  you,  "  Christ  is  the  light  of  the  world."  If  you 
gaze  upon  your  children,  they  reflect,  from  their  sweetly-sleeping 
faces  the  words  of  Christ,  "Except  ye  becometh  like  little 
children."  If,  waking,  you  look  towards  your  parents'  couch, 
from  that  sacred  place  God  calls  Himself  your  father  and  mother ; 
and  disturbed  by  the  crying  of  your  children  who  are  afirighted 
in  a  dream,  you  rise  to  soothe  them,  and  hear  God  saying,  "  So 
will  I  wipe  away  all  tears  from  your  eyes  in  Heaven."  Return- 
ing to  your  bed,  you  look  from  tlie  window,  every  star  hails  you, 

(29O 


296     TTie  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

but  cliiefest,  "  The  bright  and  morning  star."  By-and-by,  flam- 
ing from  the  east,  the  flood  of  morning  bathes  your  dwelling 
and  calls  you  forth  to  the  cares  of  the  day,  and  then  you  remem- 
ber that  God  is  the  sun,  and  that  heaven  is  bright  with  His  pres- 
ence. Drawn  by  hunger,  you  approach  the  table :  the  loaf 
whispers  as  you  break  it,  "  Broken  for  you,"  and  the  wheat  of 
the  loaf  sings,  "Bruised  and  ground  for  you."  The  water  that 
quenches  your  thirst  says,  "I  am  the  Water  of  Life."  If  you 
wash'  your  hands,  you  can  but  remember  the  teachings  of 
spiritual  purity.  If  you  wash  your  feet,  that  has  been  done 
sacredly  by  Christ  as  a  memorial.  The  very  roof  of  your  dwell- 
ing has  its  utterance,  and  bids  you  look  for  the  day  when  God's 
house  shall  receive  its  top-stone. 

Go  forth  to  your  labor  and  what  thing  can  you  see  that  has 
not  its  message  ?  The  ground  is  full  of  sympathy :  the  flowers 
have  been  printed  with  teaching.  The  trees,  that  only  seem  to 
shake  their  leaves  in  sport,  are  framing  divine  sentences ;  the 
birds  tell  of  heaven  with  their  love  warblihgs  in  the  green 
twilight ;  the  sparrow  is  a  preacher  of  truth ;  the  hen  clucks 
and  broods  her  chickens,  unconscious  that  to  the  end  of  the 
world  she  is  part  and  parcel  of  a  revelation  of  God  to  man.  The 
sheep  that  bleat  from  the  pastures,  the  hungry  wolves  that  blink 
in  the  forest,  the  serpent  that  glides  noiselessly  in  the  grass,  the 
raven  that  flies  heavily  across  the  field,  the  lily  over  which  his 
shadow  passes,  the  plough,  the  sickle,  the  wain,  the  barn,  the 
flail,  the  thrashing-floor;  all  of  them  are  consecrated  priests, 
unrobed  teachers,  revelators  that  see  no  visions  themselves,  but 
that  bring  to  us  thoughts  of  truth,  contentment,  hope,  and  love ; 
all  the  ministers  of  God.  The  whole  earth  doth  praise  Him,  and 
show  forth  His  glory. 

Imagination  lays  hold  upon  the  innermost  truth,  grasps 
it  firmly,  and  holds  it  up  embodied  to  the  mind  ;  it  is  thus 
that  analogy  becomes  one  of  the  most,  if  not  tlie  most  es- 
sential and  successful  elucidator  of  divine  truth  ;  it  does 
this  sometimes  by  a  close  comparison  of  resemblance,  and, 
sometimes,  by  what  may  be  regarded  as  more  than  tliis, 
even  an  entering  into  the  very  innermost  heart  of  the  sub- 


Tlie  Argument  from  Analogy.  297 

ject,  and  extraction  of  the  mystery  of  resemblance  ;  hence, 
mystical  views  of  divine  truth  have  very  often  been  very 
helpful ;  and,  hence,  even  some  pretty,  and  not  unforced  re- 
semblance, has  not  been  without  its  value  as  a  taper,  if  not 
a  torch.  A  beautiful  httle  book,  now  almost  forgotten,  is 
Barton's  Analogy  of  Divine  Wisdom^  in  the  Matei^ial,  SensUwe, 
Ilaral,  CivU,  and  Spiritual  System  of  Things  (1750.)  It  is 
not  like  Butler's  work,  a  firmly-plaited  argument ;  but  the 
learning  is  very  interesting  and  entertaining,  and  especially 
where  he  uses  the  difficulties  of  mathematics  for  the  pur- 
pose of  unfolding  the  difficulties  of  revelation.  Many  mat- 
ters of  science,  also,  are  handled  most  interestingly.  Cer- 
tainly many  readers,  who  find  Butler  difficult,  will  find  Dr. 
Barton's  work  most  illuminating  and  entertaining,  This 
work  of  divine  analogy  is  one  of  the  most  helpful  torches 
of  the  Christian  minister,  and  its  hterature  is  of  rare  and 
great  interest.  The  fame  of  the  work  of  Butler  has  too 
much  put  out  of  sight  what  has  been  done  before  ;  we  have 
the  Divine  Analogy  of  Bishop  Brown  (1733),  and  the  re- 
marks upon  the  same  subject  in  the  Minute  Philosopher  of 
Bishop  Berkeley.  While  Butler  was  matui'ing  his  own 
views,  these  works  and  others  were  emanating  from  the 
minds  of  authors,  whose  words  and  thoughts  are  still 
worthy  of  pondering,  although  the  more  famous  work  has 
so  suggested,  shall  we  say  exhausted,  the  depths  of  the  sub- 
ject. 

But  does  the  well-known  argument  of  Butler  satisfy? 
James  Martineau  has,  we  know,  ventured  to  exj)ress  him- 
self thus  : 

You  have  led  me  in  your  quest  after  analogies  through  the 
great  infirmary  of  God's  creation,  and  so  haunted  am  I  by  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  the  lazar  house,  that  scarce  can  I  believe  in 
anything  but  pestilence ;  so  sick  of  soul  have  I  become  that  the 
mountain  breeze  has  lost  its  scent  of  health ;  and  you  say,  it  is 
all  the  same  in  the  other  world,  and  wherever  the  same  rule  ex- 
13* 


298     Tlie  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

tends  ;  then  I  know  my  fate,  that  in  this  world  justice  has  no 
throne.  And  thus,  my  friends,  it  comes  to  pass,  that  these 
reasoners  often  gain  indeed  their  victory ;  but  it  is  known  only 
to  the  Searcher  of  Hearts,  whether  it  is  a  victory  against  natural 
religion  or  in  favor  of  revealed.  For  this  reason  I  consider  the 
Analogy  of  Bishop  Butler  (one  of  the  profoundest  of  thinkers,  and 
on  purely  moral  subjects,  one  of  the  justest  too),  as  containing, 
with  a  design  directly  contrary,  the  most  terrible  persuasives  to 
A^theism  that  have  ever  been  produced.  The  essential  error 
consists  in  selecting  the  difficulties,  which  are  the  rare  excep- 
tional phenomena  of  nature — as  the  basis  of  analogy  and  argu- 
ment. 

There  is  a  remarkable  conversation  recorded  by  Wilber- 
force  with  William  Pitt,  in  whicli  Pitt  declared  to  Wilber- 
force,  "  that  Butler's  work  raised  more  doubts  in  his  mind 
than  it  answered."  And  Sit*  James  Macintosh  is  reported 
to  have  said  of  the  Analogy,  "  This  can  only  be  an  answer 
to  Deists  ;  Atheists  might  make  use  of  his  objections,  and 
have  done  so."  By  another  writer.  Dr.  Schedel,  the  argu- 
ment of  Butler  has  been  characterized  as  "  the  analogy  of 
uncertainty,"  and  "  the  analogy  of  mystery."  While  Miss 
Hennell,  a  well-knovm  extreme  sceptical  writer,  has  claimed 
the  Analogy  as  an  ally  to  scepticism.  Yet  this  is  not  the 
impression  Butler  produced  upon  the  sceptics  of  his  own 
day.  David  Hume — the  great  king  of  sceptics  of  almost 
any  age  or  nation,  but  especially  of  the  later  days,  looked 
upon  him  with  something  of  awe  ; — mentions  how  anxious 
he  Tvas  to  have  the  bishop's  opinion  upon  some  points  in  his 
treatise  on  Human  Nature y  before  its  publication,  and  says,  in 
one  of  his  letters,  "  I  am  at  present  cutting  off  its  nobler 
parts — i.  e,y  endeavoring  it  shall  give  as  little  offence  as  pos- 
sible, before  which  I  could  not  prefend  to  put  it  into  the 
Doctor's  hands.  This  is  a  piece  of  cowardice  for  which  I 
blame  myself,  though  I  beheve  none  of  my  friends  will 
blame  me."  Hume  called  on  Butler,  but  did  not  see  him  ; 
and  some  persons  have  speculated  on  what  might  have 


Butler^s  Analogy.  299 

been,  had  Butler  been  within  when  Hume  called — the  scep- 
tic might  have  been  a  believer.  IMiss  Hennell  has  at- 
tempted to  invalidate  the  argument  of  Butler  also  on  per- 
sonal grounds  ;  but  the  character  of  Butler  every  way 
sliines  forth  as  the  clearest ;  this  profoundest  of  theologians 
was  also  the  simplest  of  believers.  The  great  sentiment  of 
the  Analogy  seems  to  have  been  ever  present  with  him,  giv- 
ing animation  to  all  its  thought.  "  He  looked  to  Christ  as 
a  poor  sinner,"  he  said,  "for  salvation."  And  one  of  the 
most  interesting  anecdotes  is  of  his  walking  in  the  garden 
with  his  chaplain,  Dr.  Foster,  stopping  short  and  turnrag 
round — a  way  he  appears  to  have  had — and  with  great 
earnestness  saying,  "  I  was  thinking.  Doctor,  what  an  awful 
thing  it  is  for  a  human  beiag  to  stand  before  the  great  Moral 
Governor  of  the  world,  and  to  give  an  account  of  all  his 
actions  in  this  life." 

We  may  well,  however,  as  this  is  the  state  of  the  argu- 
ment, desire  to  see  the  argument  of  analogy  fairly  ex- 
pounded, and  its  extent  and  Ihnitations  defined  ;  for  there 
is  a  tendency  to  undue  extension  of  analogy,  as  when  Hegel 
affirms,  "  that  as  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  represent  the  infinite  and 
the  finite,  and  the  union  of  the  two,  their  identity  first, 
then  their  distinction  and  their  return  to  identity  ;  so  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  has  a  meaning  no  less  philoso- 
phical," &c.,  &c.,  &c.  "We  may  well  be  jealous  of  any  at- 
tempts to  establish  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  u]pon  a  ra- 
tional basis,  chiefly  by  means  of  certain  natural  analogies 
supplied  by  the  consciousness  of  the  human  mind  ;  there 
are  casuistical,  Jesuitical,  and  refining  sceptics,  as  well  as 
such  among  believers  and  theologists,  and  we  believe  it  is 
from  such  hands,  perhaps  on  both  sides,  the  argument  of 
analogy,  and  Butler's  argument  in  particular,  has  suffered 
WTong  ;  the  application  of  the  argument  needs  a  broad  and 
honest  mind,  a  mind  not  so  much  allured  by  certain  pretti- 


300     The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

nesses  and  fanciful  resemblances,  as  able  to  group  and  to 
grasp  its  comparisons,  and  to  rise  from  them  to  independent 
judgment  and  generalisation.  Thus  it  is  that  analogy  has 
been,  in  so  many  and  quite  countless  instances,  the  prompt- 
er and  the  guide  of  life  ;  this  is  the  translation  of  Butler's 
very  modest  and  most  pregnant  starting-point  in  reasoning, 
this  is  his  point  of  view,  of  the  Hkelihood  of  the  truth  of 
the  Christian  system.  He  started  fi'om  this  singularly 
modest  beginning — "  It  is  not  so  clear  that  there  is  nothing 
in  it."  The  character  of  modem  infidelity  has  quite  changed 
since  Butler's  day.  His  book  was  written  in  reply  to  the 
elegant  Deism  of  his  times.  A  course  of  nature  was 
granted,  an  author  of  nature  was  admitted  ;  the  form  of 
modem  sophistry  has  changed,  a  course  of  nature  is  ad- 
mitted but  not  an  author.  How  is  the  modern  dream  of 
Pantheism  to  be  broken  ?  Will  analogy  serve  for  the  wak- 
ing ?  If  we  think,  then,  we  should  think  in  order ;  the 
greatest  danger  in  modern  thought  is  its  inconsecutive, 
and  scattered,  and  informative  character  ;  but,  alas !  that 
which  is  inconsecutive  in  thought  is  not  therefore  inconse- 
quential 

Thus,  analogy  itseH  may  be  like  any  other  law  of  thought, 
a  dangerous  guide  ;  the  use  of  analogy  is  not  to  be  denied, 
it  is  invaluable — invaluable  as  speech,  it  is  the  inner  speech 
of  the  soul,  it  is  the  power  by  which  the  soul  reaHzes  and 
expresses  itself.  All  the  discoveries  in  the  world, — ^in  me- 
chanics, in  science,  seem  to  have  been  happy  guesses,  rea- 
sonings from  analogy  :  Harvey,  and  the  cu'culation  of  the 
blood  ;  Columbus,  and  the  discovery  of  America  ;  Newton, 
and  his  system  of  the  universe  ;  Stephenson,  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  locomotives.  Biography  is  full  of  such  instances. 
"  It  may  be  almost  said,  without  qualification,"  says  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  "that  wisdom  consists  in  the  ready  and 
accurate  perception  of  analogies  ;"  and  Archbishop  Thom- 
son says,  "  This  power  of  divination,  this  sagacity  which  ia 


Experience — Moral  Analogy,  301 

the  mother  of  all  science,  we  may  call  anticipation.  The 
intellect,  with  a  dog-lihe  instinct,  loUl  not  hunt  until  it  has  found 
the  scent ;  it  must  have  some  presage  of  the  result  before  it 
will  turn  its  energies  to  its  attainment."  Thus  analogy  is 
an  mstinct  of  thought ;  the  poet  and  the  metaphysician — 
Tennyson  and  Bishop  Berkeley — meet  together  in  their 
statement  of  this,  when  the  one  says  : 

Thought  leapt  out  to  wed  with  thought, 
Ere  thought  leapt  out  to  wed  with  speech ; 

and  the  other  says,  "  An  idea  which,  considered  in  itself,  is 
particular,  becomes  gen<^al  by  being  made  to  represent  or 
stand  for  all  other  particular  ideas  of  the  same  sort."  This 
is,  in  fact,  analogy  and  the  statement  of  the  law  of  analogy. 
Now,  how  is  this  power  in  man  to  be  used  by  the  religious 
teacher,  man  being  unable  to  tliink  or  act  intelligently  with- 
out the  use  of  analogy  ?  Does  it  aid  the  entrance  into,  and 
the  dealing  with,  the  higher  facts  of  the  universe — the  uni- 
verse and  its  author  ;  is  it  a  hght  ? — may  it  be  made  yet 
more  a  hght  for  the  exploring  the  kingdom  of  moral  rela- 
tions ?  It  has  been  finely  said  by  Kobert  Boyle,  "  that  rev- 
elation may  be  to  reason  what  the  telescope  is  to  the  eye  ;" 
but  the  telescope  needs  fixing,  needs  some  skill  in  using. 
God  gives  nothing — neither  a  hand,  foot,  nor  spade — that 
does  not  need  education  for  useful  exercise.  The.  very 
charm  of  analogy  may  lead  to  its  being  misused.  Expe- 
rience is  a  powerful  teacher,  because  experience  is  only  an- 
other name  for  induction  or  moral  analogy ;  hence  man 
should  be  taught  to  construct  his  moral  science  for  himself 
upon  the  basis  of  Scripture  and  experience  ;  and  Dr.  Bu- 
chanan well  says,  "  One  or  two  instances  clearly  discerned 
and  intelligently  apphed,  by  the  exercise  of  a  man's  own 
mind,  will  be  of  more  practical  avail  than  a  hundred  exam- 
ples presented  on  paper,  and  read,  but  not  followed  up  by 
reflection." 


302     Tlie  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

It  is  very  clear  that  Scripture,  in  the  appeal  it  makes  to 
the  understanding  of  man,  rests  strongly  on  this  instinct  of 
analogy — "  the  invisible  things  of  Him  are  clearly  seen,  even 
his  eternal  power  and  Godhead."  Thus  the  sin  of  Idolatry 
is  condemned.  Forasmuch  then  as  "  we  are  the  offspring 
of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  Godhead  is  like  unto 
gold  or  silver,  or  stone  graven  by  art  and  man's  device." 
Dr.  Whately  has  very  directly  traced  our  knowledge  of  the 
properties  of  man  to  our  knowledge  of  the  perfections  of 
God — the  showing  that  the  proof  of  a  being  possessed  of 
them  is,  in  fact,  the  very  same  evidence  on  which  we  believe 
in  the  existence  of  one  another.  How  do  we  know  that  men 
exist,  that  is,  not  beings  having  a  certain  visible  bodily  form, 
for  that  is  not  what  we  chiefly  imply  by  the  word  man,  but 
as  rational  agents  such  as  we  call  men  ?  Surely  not  by  the 
immediate  evidence  of  our  senses,  since  mind  is  not  an  ob- 
ject of  sight,  but  by  observing  the  things  performed — the 
manifest  result  of  rational  contrivance.  If  we  land  in  a 
strange  country  doubting  whether  it  be  inhabited,  as  soon 
as  we  find,  for  instance,  a  boat  or  a  house,  we  are  as  per- 
fectly ceiiain  that  a  man  has  been  there  as  if  he  appeared 
before  our  eyes.  Now  we  are  surrounded  with  similar 
proofs  that  there  is  a  God.  In  the  same  manner  of  argu- 
ment from  analogy,  I  have  recently  read  a  paper  by  Pro- 
fessor Hitchcock,  in  the  BihUotheca  Sacra,  "  On  the  Law  of 
Nature's  Constancy  as  Subordinate  to  the  Higher  Law  of 
Change," — ^truly  a  most  pregnant  subject  of  thought — for 
if  natural  changes  are  consistent  with  fixed  laws,  they  are 
no  less  consistent  with  perturbations  which  seem  to  shock 
and  threaten  the  stability  of  the  whole  system.  From  the 
time  of  Paley  to  this,  frequent  references  have  been  made 
to  the  ceaseless  disturbances  upon  the  regularity  and  per- 
manency of  the  celestial  motions  ;  but  so  far  from  disturb- 
ing, they  secure  the  permanence  perhaps  of  a  whole  Zodiac 
— ^the  faUibility  of  a  system  secures  eternal  stability.     What 


Pantheism. 


303 


an  endless  lesson  this  reads  us!  The  analogy  of  nature 
leads  us  through  all  her  works  to  beheve  that  the  principle 
of  change — which  has  been  hitherto  mightier  than  any 
other  in  the  government  and  preservation  of  the  universe, 
and  in  promoting  its  happiness — has  its  moral  analogies, 
and  that  it  may  furnish  some  light  as  to  the  dealing  of  God, 
not  only  with  the  Mngdoms  of  matter,  but  also  with  the 
kingdom  of  souls.  It  is  the  modern  fashion  to  declare  that 
this  poor  sort  of  argument  is  overlooked,  that  the  apparent 
manifestation  of  design  is  no  proof  of  "  the  manifold  wis- 
dom of  God  ;"  that  hving  infinite  Consciousness,  which  we 
call  God,  has  been  dethroned  by  the  mighty  modern 
thinkers. 

With  deep  intuition  and  mystic  rite 

We  worship  the  Absolute  Infinite ; 

The  universe  Ego,  the  Plenary  void; 

The  subject — object  identified : 

The  nothing  something,  the  Being  Thought, 

That  mouldeth  the  mass  of  chaotic  thought ; 

Whose  beginning  unended  and  end  unbegun 

Is  the  One  that  is  All,  and  the  All  that  is  One. 

The  great  totality  of  everything 

That  never  is,  but  ever  doth  become. 

Perhaps  to  attempt  to  shiver  this  Pantheistic  gibberish 
by  any  serious  appeal  to  argument  would  be  vain  work. 
Mr.  ManseU,  in  his  effort  to  do  this,  has  been  thought  to 
be  not  a  very  serviceable  ally  to  the  cause  of  faith.  Perhaps 
"  the  great  power  of  God"  wiU  never  nerve  with  supreme 
and  ahnighty  force  the  arm  wielding  the  brightest  sword 
from  the  armory  of  the  human  understanding  ;  but  if  the 
constitution  of  nature  is  to  be  augured  from  as  a  Divine  inten- 
tion,  as  well  as  existence,  it  will  be  by  illustrations  from  the 
wide  field  of  analogy  ;  indeed,  this  form  of  argument  might, 
I  believe,  be  most  successfully  and  triumphantly  apphed  to 


304     TT^^  ^^^  <^^<^  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

the  utterly  wild  and  most  baseless  "  absolutisms"  of  Hegel 
and  Compt ;  and  it  would  be  very  interesting  to  ask  those 
gentlemen  who  look  shudderingly  and  disdainfully  on  the 
doctrine  of  analogy,  what  they  think  of  the  lawless  depart- 
ure from  it, — that  cheerless  voyaging  in  the  phantom  ship 
of  abstract  timbers  of  the  good  ship  No  Thing,  to  the  Con- 
tinent of  No  Where, 

No  doubt,  the  nature  within  the  man  determines  the 
character  of  his  moral  analogies,  as  it  has  been  well  said, 
"The  wolf,  when  he  was  learning  to  read,  could  make 
nothing  out  of  the  letters  but  lamb,  whatever  other  words 
they  might  form,"  and  the  clearest  and  purest  light  will 
bum  but  in  certain  atmospheres.  The  Scripture  theory 
presumes  an  understanding  purified  and  prepared  for  a 
clear,  a  holy,  and  correct  judgment.  The  exercise  of  anal- 
ogy is  indeed  to  be  prized  as  an  inestimable  weapon  ;  it  is 
valuable  and  available  not  only  for  the  almost  negative  pur- 
poses I  have  indicated — important  as  these  are — it  is  valu- 
able in  all  the  parts  of  the  building  of  the  Christian  system 
and  the  Christian  life.  "  Our  Lord  regarded  aU  nature  as 
a  symbol,  whose  more  hteral  meaning  had  a  spiritual  appH- 
cation.  Hence,  he  spoke  of  knowledge,  under  the  name  of 
light ;  of  spiritual  renovation,  as  birth  ;  of  faith,  as  mental 
eyesight ;  the  Spirit's  agency,  as  similar  to  the  influence  of 
the  unseen  wind."  Visions  and  symbols,  types  and  para- 
bles, symbolical  objects  and  symboHcal  actions  abound  in 
the  Scriptures  of  Truth — a  great  scheme  of  representation- 
alism  opens  to  the  eye.  "  These  things  were  our  examples." 
Hence,  if  Lord  Bacon  could  say,  "  We  must  observe  resem- 
blances and  analogies,  they  unite  nature,  and  lay  the  foun- 
dation of  the  sciences,"  we  may  say,  we  must  observe  re- 
semblances and  analogies,  they  unite  nature  and  Scripture, 
and  lay  the  foundation,  broad  and  immovable,  of  rational, 
and  faithful  religion  ;  and,  in  a  higher  sense  than  that 
which  Newton  wTought,  the  physics  of  the  earth  become 


An  Argument  from  Analogy  on  Chat  Moss,  305 

the  means  of  exploring  and  understanding  fche  mysteries  of 
the  heavens. 

We  should  be  glad  therefore  of  any  help  towards  trim- 
ming this  lamp,  and  making  more  bright,  and  pure,  and 
clear  the  teachings  of  analogy.  It  will  do  very  much,  and 
be  very  useful  to  enlighten  intelligences,  and  to  make  more 
vivid  the  perceptions  for  the  noting  the  system,  natural  and 
moral,  beneath  which  we  live  ;  as  also,  we  may  naturally 
hope,  the  awakening  mmds  to  the  study  of  the  highest 
order  of  the  Christian  evidences,  and  the  satisfactory  per- 
suasion of  the  human  understanding,  that  there  is  not  only 
no  discrepancy,  but  wondrous  harmony  between  the  works 
and  the  Word  of  God. 

Imagination  is  not  always,  however,  so  ambitious.  A 
stroke  of  illustrative  analogy  sometimes  answers  the  end  of 
the  speaker.  When  preaching  from  the  words  of  our  Lord, 
— "  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things  and  ye  believe  not, 
how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly  things  ?  " — I 
foimd  it  impossible  to  forbear  commencing  by  a  reference 
to  the  great  legal  contest  for  the  purpose 'of  throwing  out 
the  Bill  for  the  line  of  rail  between  Liverpool  and  Man- 
chester. Chat  Moss,  over  which  it  now  passes,  had  been 
for  ages  a  vast  mysterious  bog — ^men,  travellers  and  soldiers 
had  often  been  buried  in  its  weltering  slough.  When 
George  Stephenson's  plan  was  proposed  engineers  showed 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  start  a  train  in  a  gale  of 
wind,  and  then  Mr.  Alderson,  afterwards  Baron  Alderson, 
summed  up  in  a  speech  which  extended  over  two  days,  he 
declared  Mr.  Stephenson's  plan  to  be  the  most  absurd 
scheme  that  ever  entered  into  the  head  of  man  to  conceive. 
Said  he : 

"  My  learned  friends  almost  endeavored  to  stop  my  examina- 
tion ;  they  wished  me  to  put  in  the  plan,  but  I  had  rather  have 
the  exhibition  of  Mr.  Stephenson  in  that  box.    I  say  he  never 


ifaiflVBRSIT^ 


3o6     The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

had  a  plan.  I  believe  he  never  had  one.  I  do  not  believe  he  is 
capable  of  making  one.  His  is  a  mind  perpetually  fluctuating 
between  opposite  difficulties ;  he  neither  knows  whether  he  is  to 
make  bridges  over  roads  or  rivers,  of  one  size  or  of  another,  or 
to  make  embankments,  or  cuttings,  or  inclined  planes,  or  in 
what  way  the  thing  is  to  be  carried  into  effect.  Whenever  a 
difficulty  is  pressed,  as  in  the  case  of  a  tunnel,  he  gets  out  of  it 
at  one  end,  and  when  you  try  to  catch  him  at  that,  he  gets  out 
at  the  other."  Mr.  Alderson  proceeded  to  declaim  against  the 
gross  ignorance  of  this  so-called  engineer,  who  proposed  to  make 
"  impossible  ditches  by  the  side  of  an  impossible  railway  "  upon 
Chat  Moss.  *'  I  care  not,"  he  said,  "  whether  iMr.  Giles  is  right 
or  wrong  in  his  estimate ;  for  whether  it  be  effected  by  means 
of  piers  raised  up  all  the  way  for  four  miles  through  Chat  Moss, 
w^hether  they  are  to  support  it  on  beams  of  wood,  or  by  erecting 
masonry,  or  whether  Mr.  Giles  shall  put  a  solid  bank  of  earth 
through  it,  in  all  these  schemes  there  is  not  one  found  like  that 
of  Mr.  Stephenson's,  namely,  to  cut  impossible  drains  on  the 
side  of  this  road ;  and  it  is  sufficient  for  me  to  suggest  and  to 
show  that  this  scheme  of  Mr.  Stephenson's  is  impossible  or  im- 
practicable, and  that  no  other  scheme,  if  they  proceed  upon  this 
line,  can  be  suggested  which  will  not  produce  enormous  expense. 
I  think  that  has  been  irrefragably  made  out.  Every  one  knows 
Chat  Moss,  every  one  knows  that  the  iron  sinks  immediately  on 
its  being  put  upon  the  surface.  I  have  heard  of  culverts,  which 
have  been  put  upon  the  Moss,  which,  after  having  been  surveyed 
the  day  before,  have  the  next  morning  disappeared ;  and  that  a 
house  (a  poet's  house,  who  may  be  supposed  in  the  habit  of 
building  castles  even  in  the  air)  story  after  story,  as  fast  as  one 
is  added,  the  lower  one  sinks !  There  is  nothing,  it  appears, 
except  long  sedgy  grass,  and  a  little  soil  to  prevent  its  sinking 
into  the  shades  of  eternal  night.  I  have  now  done,  sir,  with 
Chat  Moss,  and  there  I  leave  this  railroad." 

Remembering  how  often  we  have  travelled  over  Chat 
Moss  in  the  rushing  train,  whose  rails  were  laid  by  the 
man  so  scoffed  and  scorned,  what  an  illustration  it  gives 
of  that  mysterious  truth  and  kingdom  of  which  our  Lord 


Varied  Imagery.  307 

said,  "If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things  and  yebeheve  not, 
how  shall  ye  beheve  if  I  teU  you  of  heavenly  ?  " 

And  surely  I  may  remark  here,  that  as  an  age  and  nation 
of  shepherds  derived  its  imagery  from  pastoral  occupations ; 
an  age  and  nation  of  merchants,  from  commerce ;  the  age 
of  science  should  derive  its  images  from  the  world  of 
science,  as  in  such  an  illustration  from  Dr.  James  Hamil- 
ton : 

It  is  of  vast  moment  to  be  "  just  right "  when  starting.  At 
Preston,  at  Malines,  at  many  such  places,  the  Hnes  go  gently 
asunder ;  so  fine  is  the  angle  that  at  first  the  paths  are  almost 
parallel,  and  it  seems  of  small  moment  which  you  select.  But  a 
nttle  further  on  one  of  them  turns  a  corner,  or  dives  into  a  tun- 
nel, and  now  that  the  speed  is  full  the  angle  opens  up,  and  at  the 
rate  of  a  mile  a  minute  the  divided  convoy  flies  asunder ;  one 
passenger  is  on  the  way  to  Italy,  another  to  the  swamps  of  Hol- 
land ;  one  will  step  out  in  London,  the  other  in  the  Irish  Chan- 
nel. It  is  not  enough  that  you  book  for  the  better  country ;  you 
must  keep  the  way,  and  a  small  deviation  may  send  you  entirely 
wrong.  A  slight  deflection  from  honesty,  a  slight  divergence 
from  perfect  truthfulness,  from  perfect  sobriety,  may  throw  you 
on  a  wrong  track  altogether,  and  make  a  failure  of  that  life 
which  should  have  proved  a  comfort  to  your  family,  a  credit  to 
your  country,  a  blessing  to  mankind.  Beware  of  the  bad  habit, 
&c.,  &c. 

It  was  a  good  saying  of  an  ancient  bishop,  "  Lord  send 
me  learning  enough,  that  I  may  preach  plain  enough."  It 
is  indeed  the  end  of  every  instruction  the  preacher  can  re- 
ceive, and  it  has  been  often  remarked  that  prophets  and 
preachers  in  the  Old  Testament  ever  accommodated  them- 
selves to  the  capacities  of  those  to  whom  they  spoke.  They 
talked  of  fishes  to  the  Egyptians,  and  droves  of  cattle  to 
the  Arabians,  and  trade  and  traffic  to  the  Syrians  ;  and  our 
Lord  tells  His  fishermen  they  shall  be  fishers  of  men. 
Hence  for  this  very  reason  not  only  the  Evangelists,  but 


308     Tlie  Use  and  Abuse  of  Lnagination. 

the  great  preachers  Hke  Augustine  and  Ambrose  spoke  vul- 
garly, they  used  a  popular  idiom  and  dialect  in  their  deter- 
mination to  be  understood  ;  they  stood  not  always  upon 
pureness  of  style,  being  more  solicitous  about  the  matter 
than  the  words.  Men  and  children  use  things  in  very  dif- 
ferent ways,  a  child  uses  money,  but  with  different  ideas  to 
a  man  ;  and  bees  and  butterflies  extract  different  tlnngs 
from  the  same  flowers.  Thus,  while  some  ministers  only 
desire  to  tip  their  tongues  or  to  store  their  heads,  the  true 
minister's  idea  is  to  save  himself  and  those  who  hear  him. 
He  must  therefore  stoop  to  their  apprehensions,  condescend 
to  their  capacities,  that  he  may  save  some,  becoming  all 
things  to  all  men  ;  Paul  said  he  would  even  become  "  a  fool 
for  Christ's  sake."  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  for  the 
purpose  of  teaching,  one  illustration  is  worth  a  thousand 
abstractions  ;*  they  are  the  windows  of  speech,  through 
them  truth  shines,  and  ordinary  minds  fail  to  perceive  tiTith 
clearly  unless  it  is  presented  to  them  through  their  medium. 
One  of  the  most  loved  methods  of  illustration  ever  has 
been  the  parable,  but  this  is  a  high,  rare,  and  very  difficult 
power  ;  children  love  tales,  fauy  tales,  parables.  The  bet- 
ter sort  of  grown-up  children,  we  fancy,  like  them  too  ;  for, 
indeed,  they  are  constantly  doing  that  for  us,  which  we  are 
all  trying  to  do  for  ourselves,  in  one  way  or  other,  namely, 
to  realize.  This  is  the  hidden  charm  of  the  story-teller  ;  he 
gives  a  local  habitation  and  a  name  to  thoughts  which  wan- 
der through  eternity  ;  he  brings  the  abstract  and  wander- 
ing spirit  home  ;  he  imprisons  the  dainty  Ariel.  No  man 
wiU  be  a  favorite  talker  to  children  who  does  not  speak  in 
parables  ;  and  the  teacher  to  the  mighty  multitudes  will  be 
efficient  in  the  proportion  to  his  power  of  wielding  admira- 
bly the  parable.  But  it  requires  some  of  the  most  varied 
powers  of  the  human  mind,  and  it  is  difficult  to  wield  it 

*  How  affluently  this  is  illustrated  in  Spencer's  Yi^aiva  Kai  'Kokaia 
—Things  New  and  Old,  1658,  p.  281. 


"  Without  a  Parable  spake  He  notP        309 

well.  Eloquence  and  rhetoric  may  furnish  a  "  linked  sweet- 
ness long  drawn  out ; "  but  parable  opens,  unfolds,  ex- 
pounds, and  illustrates.  The  greatest  of  all  teachers 
adopted  this  expedient — "  Without  a  parable  spake  He  not 
unto  them."  It  may  be,  and  is,  and  has  been  much  abused  ; 
but  no  power  is  so  likely  to  awaken  in  an  auditor  the  Hs- 
tening  ear,  and  to  furnish  the  understanding  heart.  This 
is  that  power  which  John  Bunyan  has  glorified  by  his  pen, 
and  which  made  Chkistmas  Evans  the  most  popular  preacher 
of  his  country.  Goethe  delighted  to  use  it.  In  no  other 
way  can  the  subtleties  and  sophisms  of  the  intellect  be  so 
completely  elucidated.  Thus  the  phantasmagoria  of  the 
mind  are  thrown  upon  the  printer's  sheet ;  thus  is  fulfilled 
the  great  injunction  of  the  ancients,  paint  your  ideas.  Put 
them  into  such  a  shape  that  you  can  look  at  them,  and  per- 
mit others  to  look  at  them.  The  parable  is  to  the  abstrac- 
tions of  the  mind  what  the  diagram  is  to  mathematical 
science,  or  natural  philosophy,  or  the  experiment  to  chem- 
istry. WeU-told  parables  are  the  diagrams  of  metaphysics 
and  psychology  ;  and,  if  the  reader  will,  of  theology  too. 
If  the  only  Master  who  could  teach  infinite  truth  did  not 
disdain  their  aise,  why  should  his  disciples?  Well  said 
LoKD  Bacon,  and  Mrs.  Gatty  has  done  well  in  quoting  the 
saying — "Parables  are  more  ancient  than  argimients." 
And  the  author  of  the  proverb,  in  many  of  his  writings, 
shows  his  faith  in,  by  his  pra^ctice  of,  this  ancient  principle. 
John  Wesley  required  of  his  young  preachers  that  they 
study,  among  other  books,  Spenser's  "Fairy  Queen."  It  is 
well-known  that  Jonathan  Edwards  became  a  better  preach- 
er after  reading  "  Clarissa  Harlowe  ; "  and,  certainly,  we 
beheve  that  a  course  of  judicious  fiction  would  be  as  bene- 
ficial in  training  for  a  teacher  as  a  course  of  mental  or 
moral  science. 

This  we  believe  to  be  the  law  of  the  parable  ;  thought  is 
unhappy  until  it  finds  a  body  for  itself ;   it  wearies  of 


3 1  o     The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination, 

wandering  to  and  fro  among  words  which,  at  the  best,  can 
only  convey  half  a  meaning ;  it  tires  of  a  vara  flitting 
through  the  chambers  of  ghosts  and  disembodied  thought, 
forms  which,  if  they  are  reaUy  there,  and  perceived,  are 
only  like  phantoms  dancing  on  the  wall.  Hence,  the 
parabohc  form  of  thought  is  not  pecuhar  to  any  people  ; 
aU  nations  have  their  legends,  and,  perhaps,  the  unity  of 
the  popular  legend  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  illustra- 
tions of  the  unity  of  the  race.  Legends  are  not  so  much 
derived  from  each  other,  tliey  are  rather  the  spontaneous 
language  of  the  wondering  and  the  reahzing  soul  of  man. 
This  is  a  topic  that  merits  much  more  than  a  passing 
remark ;  but  it  is  beyond  the  range  of  these  lectures. 
Meanwhile,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  imagery  and 
parabohc  power  of  the  mind  is  confined  to  the  Eastern  and 
Scriptural  illustrations.  Iceland  has  its  Edda  and  the 
Sagas  of  Snorro  Sturleston. 

There  is  a  singular  disposition  of  the  mind  to  regard  all 
things  as  human,  and  even  inanimate  things  as  really  alive. 
From  before  the  days  even  of  ^sop  until  now,  beasts  and 
birds,  and  creeping  things,  have  been  made  to  speak,  not 
only  as  in  the  possession  of  consciousness^  but  of  reason 
and  sensibihty.  Imagination  plays  with  these  things  and 
creatures  ;  and  the  happy  power  of  the  good-humored 
caricaturist,  who  would  cure  the  vices  or  foibles  of  man- 
kind without  the  severity  of  the  satirist,  is  never  more 
admirably  displayed  than  when  indulging  these  innocent 
hcenses  of  fancy  and  speech.  It  is  most  quaint  and  ludi- 
crous to  notice  what  human  hkenesses  and  resemblances 
peep  out  from  the  meanest  things.  The  echo  of  a  human 
heart  seems  to  sound  from  all  things  above  man,  and 
every  little  creature,  and  every  thing  man  has  made,  from 
beneath  him,  seems  to  look  up  and  to  claim  a  relationship. 
Thus,  in  a  little  illustration  of  Anderson's  way  of  using 
things : — 


The  Place  and  Power  of  Parahle.       311 

There  was  once  a  Darning-needle  so  fine  that  she  fancied  her- 
self a  Sewing-needle. 

"  Now,  take  care,  and  hold  me  fast !  "  said  the  Darning-needle 
to  the  Fingers  that  took  her  up.  "  Don't  lose  me,  pray  !  If  I 
were  to  fall  down  on  the  floor,  you  would  never  be  able  to  find 
me  again,  I  am  so  fine  !  " 

"  That's  more  than  you  can  tell ! "  said  the  Fingers,  as  they 
took  hold  of  her.   . 

"  See,  I  come  with  a  train  ! "  said  the  Darning-needle,  draw- 
ing a  long  thread,  without  a  single  knot  in  it,  after  her. 

The  Fingers  guided  the  Needle  to  the  cook-maid's  slippers  ; 
the  upper  leather  was  torn,  and  had  to  be  sewn  together. 

"  This  is  vulgar  work  I ''  said  the  Darning-needle ;  "  I  shall 
never  get  through  ;  I  break,  I  am  breaking  ! "  And  break  she 
did.     "  Did  I  not  say  so  ?  continued  she  ;  "  I  am  too  fine  I " 

"  Now  she  is  good  for  nothing,"  thought  the  Fingers  ;  how- 
ever, they  must  still  keep  their  hold ;  the  cook-maid  dropped 
sealing-wax  upon  the  Darning-needle  and  then  stuck  her  into 
her  neckerchief. 

"  See,  now  I  am  a  Breast-pin  !  "  said  the  Darning-needle  <;  "  I 
knew  well  that  I  should  come  to  honor ;  when  one  is  something, 
one  always  becomes  something."  And  at  this  she  laughed, 
only  inwardly,  of  course,  for  nobody  has  ever  seen  or  heard  a 
Darning-needle  laugh ;  there  sat  she  now  at  her  ease,  as  proud 
as  if  she  were  driving  in  her  carriage,  and  looking  about  her 
on  all  sides. 

A  parable  is  a  spoken  picture, — an  expression  of  spirit- 
ual truth  through  the  medium  of  natural  circumstance  ; 
while  fable  assigns  moral  quahties  to  unreasoning,  and 
even  to  inanimate  things  ;  and  the  savage  who  called  the 
chip  of  wood  a  talking  chip,  when  the  missionary  wrote  in 
pencil  upon  it,  and  sent  by  it  a  messenger  to  his  wife,  and 
obtained  back  the  tool  he  needed,  only  illustrates  that 
wide  personification  so  natural  to  simple  minds,  and  of 
which  poets  and  teachers  have  always  been  ready  to  avail 
themselves.  "My  dear  boy,"  says 'Douglas  Jerrold,  in 
Punch's  Letters  to  his  Son^  "  be  a  bright  poker  ; "  it  is  at 


2 1 2     The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

once  a  very  short  proverb,  and  a  very  expressive  parable. 
By  the  fire  place  there  are  two  pokers,  one  black,  bent; 
the  other  effulgent,  speckless  steel, — one  for  use,  the  other 
for  ornament  The  poor  little  black  poker  cracked  the 
coals,  and  cleared  the  lower  bar,  and  stirred  and  levelled 
the  fire,  and  accommodated  the  tea-kettle  to  the  coals:  and, 
in  fact,  did  all  the  poking  and  raking,  and  binning,  and 
banging,  and  all  the  sweating  work.  The  bright  poker 
was  a  kind  of  consecrated  thing;  and  when  the  owner  of 
the  house  went  out,  it  was  even  sometimes  removed  from 
the  grate,  and  swathed  in  flannel,  oiled,  and  left  to  repose 
in  luxurious  idleness,  while  its  poor  Httle  friend  was  worked 
to  the  stump,  and  then  flung  aside  for  vile,  old  iron.  The 
bright  poker  lasted  out  a  dozen,  doing  nothing,  lustrous 
and  inactive.  And  the  image  may  remind  my  hearers  how 
this  extraordinary  power  of  the  fancy  invests  dead,  and 
almost  worthless  things,  with  even  spiritual  properties, 
setting  them  all  a  talking,  and  giving  them  from  out  of 
ourselves  functions  so  far  beyond  themselves,  and  making 
them  to  be  embodied  teachers  and  representations  of 
truths.  Thus  that  wise  man,  Mr.  Caxton,  teaches  how 
good  wishes  do  not  mend  bad  actions;  but  how  good 
actions  mend  bad  actions.  And  again,  when  his  httle  son 
came  into  the  room,  glowing  and  panting,  health  on  his 
cheek — vigor  in  his  Hmbs — all  childhood  at  his  heart. 

"  Oh,  mamma,  I  have  got  up  the  kite — so  high  ! — come  and 
see.     Do  come,  papa." 

"  Certainly,"  said  my  father  ;  *'  only  don't  cry  so  loud — kites 
make  no  noise  in  rising  ;  yet,  you  see  how  they  soar  above  the 
world.  Come,  Kate.  Where  is  my  hat  ?  Ah — thank  you,  my 
boy." 

"  Kitty,"  said  my  father,  looking  at  the  kite,  which,  attached 
by  its  string  to  the  peg  I  had  stuck  into  the  ground,  rested 
calmly  in  the  sky,  "  rfever  fear  but  what  our  kite  shall  fly  as 
high  ;  only,  the  human  soul  has  stronger  instincts  to  mount  up- 


Parable  in  the  Pulpit  313 

ward  than  a  few  sheets  of  paper  on  a  framework  of  lath.  But, 
observe,  that  to  prevent  its  being  lost  in  the  freedom  of  space, 
we  must  attach  it  lightly  to  earth  ;  and,  observe  again,  my  dear, 
that  the  higher  it  soars,  the  more  string  we  must  give  it." 

Has  the  pulpit  any  connection  or  interest  with  this  kind 
of  teaching  ?  I  should  think  so,  especially  if  it  is  ever  to 
condescend  to  teach,  or  speak  to  the  multitudes  of  chil- 
dren in  Sabbath  schools; — of  course,  to  be  ejQfective,  or 
even  tolerable,  it  needs  especially  the  touch  and  glow  of 
genius;  arid  the  sermons  of  Christmas  Evans  assure  us 
that  it  may  be  useful  and  admirable. 

It  was  somewhat  in  this  manner  Latimer  was  in  the 
habit  of  speaking,  as  when  he  says: — 

We  read  a  pretty  story  of  St.  Anthony,  who,  being  in  the 
wilderness,  led  there  a  very  hard  and  strict  life,  insomuch  as 
none  at  that  time  did  the  like,  to  whom  came  a  voice  saying, 
"  Anthony,  thou  art  not  so  perfect  as  is  a  cobbler  that  dwelleth 
at  Alexandria."  Anthony,  hearing  this,  rose  up  forthwith,  and 
took  his  staff  and  travelled  till  he  came  to  Alexandria,  where  he 
found  the  cobbler.  The  cobbler  was  astonished  to  see  so  rev- 
erend a  father  come  to  his  house.  Then  Anthony  said  unto  him, 
*'Come  and  tell  me  thy  whole  conversation,  and  how  thou 
spendest  thy  time."  Sir,"  said  the  cobbler,  "  as  for  me,  good 
works  have  I  none,  for  my  life  is  but  simple  and  slender ;  I  am 
but  a  poor  cobbler ;  in  the  morning  when  I  rise,  I  pray  for  the 
whole  city  wherein  I  dwell,  especially  for  all  such  neighbors 
and  poor  friends  as  I  have  ;  after,  I  set  me  at  my  labor,  where  I 
spend  the  whole  day  in  getting  my  living ;  and  I  keep  me  from 
all  falsehood,  for  I  hate  nothing  so  much  as  I  do  deceitfuluess ; 
wherefore,  when  I  make  any  man  a  promise  I  keep  it  and  per- 
form it  truly ;  and  thus  I  spend  my  time  poorly,  with  my  wife 
and  children  whom  I  teach  and  instruct,  as  far  as  my  wit  wiU 
serve  me,  to  fear  and  dread  God.  And  this  is  the  sum  of  my 
gimple  life."  * 

*  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  737.    Ed.  1759. 
14 


314     ^^^  ^^  ^^^  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

And  Jeremy  Taylor's  well-knoTVTi  appropriation  of  a  Jew- 
ish legend : — 

When  Abraham  sat  at  his  tent  door,  according  to  his  custom, 
waiting  to  entertain  strangers,  he  espied  an  old  man,  stooping 
and  leaning  on  his  staff,  weary  with  age  and  travel,  coming 
towards  him,  who  was  a  hundred  years  old.  He  received  him 
kindly,  washed  his  feet,  provided  supper,  caused  him  to  sit 
down ;  but  observing  that  the  old  man  ate,  and  prayed  not,  nor 
begged  for  a  blessing  on  his  meat,  he  asked  him  why  he  did  not 
worship  the  God  of  heaven.  The  old  man  told  him  that  he 
worshipped  the  fire  only,  and  acknowledged  no  other  God.  At 
which  answer  Abraham  grew  so  zealously  angry,  that  he  thrust 
the  old  man  out  of  his  tent,  and  exposed  him  to  all  the  evils  of 
the  night  and  an  unguarded  condition.  When  the  old  man  was 
gone,  God  called  to  Abraham  and  asked  him  where  the  stranger 
was  ?  He  replied,  I  thrust  him  away  because  he  did  not  wor- 
ship thee.  God  answered  him,  I  have  suffered  him  these  hun- 
dred years,  although  he  dishonored  me ;  and  couldst  not  thou 
endure  him  one  night  ? 

One  of  the  sweetest  httle  fancies  I  know  in  this  way  is 
in  John  Pulsford's  most  beautiful  and  helpful  "  Quiet 
Hours,"  a  work  which  will  outHve,  on  the  waves  of  time, 
many  a  more  ambitious  looking  vessel. 

A  LITTLE   bird's   SERMON  TO   A   SERMON-MAKER. 

I  was  in  the  act  of  kneeling  down  before  the  Lord,  my  God, 
when  a  little  bird,  in  the  lightest,  freest  humour,  came  and 
perched  near  my  window,  and  thus  preached  to  me,  all  the  while 
hopping  about  from  spray  to  spray.  "  O  thou  grave  man  look 
on  me  and  learn  something,  if  not  the  deepest  lesson,  then  a 
true  one.  Thy  God  made  me ;  and,  if  thou  canst  conceive  it, 
loves  me  and  cares  for  me.  TTiou  studiest  Him  in  great  prob- 
lems, which  oppress  and  confound  thee ;  thou  losest  sight  of 
one  half  of  His  ways.  Learn  to  see  thy  God  not  in  great  mys- 
teries only,  but  in  me  also.  His  burden  on  me  is  light,  His 
yoke  on  me  is  easy ;  but  thou  makcst  burdens  and  yokes  for 
thyself  which  are  very  grievous  to  be  borne.     I  advise  thee  not 


A  Little  Bird's  Sermon. 


315 


only  to  see  God  in  little  things  ;  but  to  see  little,  cheerful,  sport- 
ive things  in  God,,  as  well  as  great,  solemn,  awful  things.  Things 
deep  as  hell  and  high  as  heaven  thou  considerest  over  much ; 
but  thou  dost  not '  consider  the  lilies  '  sufficiently.  Every  priest 
should  put  by  his  awful  robes,  &c.,  &c.,  sometimes,  and  go  free. 
If  tliou  couldst  be  as  a  lily  before  God,  for  at  least  one  hour  in 
the  twenty-four,  it  would  do  thee  good ;  I  mean  if  thou  couldst 
cease  to  will  and  to  think,  and  le  only.  Consider,  the  lily  is  as 
really  from  God  as  thou  art,  and  is  a  figure  of  something  in 
Him^  the  like  of  which  should  also  be  in  thee. 

"  Thou  longest  to  grow,  but  the  lily  grows  without  longing  ; 
yes,  without  either  thinking  or  willing,  (/rows,  and  is  beautiful 
both  to  God  and  man.     Think  of  that. 

*'  In  conclusion  I  remind  thee,  that '  God  has  many  kinds  of 
voices  in  the  world,  and  none  of  them  is  without  signification.' 
But  I  perceive  that  thine  ear  is  open  only  to  voices  of  one  kind. 
Thy  danger  is,  under  the  conceit  of  being  the  more  godly,  of 
becoming  monstrous,  and  not  quite  Godlike.  Excuse  a  little 
bird.  I  am  but  one  of  the  '  many  kinds  of  voices '  which  God 
has  *  in  the  world.'  " 

But  there  is  a  kind  of  illustration  which  is  no  illustra- 
tion ;  fancy  and  imagination  run  wild  ;  all  separated  alike 
from  good  sense  and  good  taste,  which  are  indeed  the 
same.  Sometimes  thiags  have  been  said  merely  to  pro- 
duce effect ;  sometimes  from  the  mere  ignorance  or  exe- 
crable taste  in  the  speaker,  and  this  may  be  without  the 
preacher  being  so  bad  as  he  who  likened  "  the  angel,  hav- 
ing the  everlasting  Gospel  to  preach,  to  an  angel  running 
on  a  rainbow  with  a  basket  of  stars  in  each  hand  ;"  or  that 
American  diviae  who,  describing  the  flight  from  time  to 
eternity,  said,  "  It  would  be  as  if  astride  a  flash  of  light- 
ning— putting  spurs  into  it  to  dash  off  to  glory."  Worse, 
if  possible,  than  this  it  is,  when  words  are  used  only  be- 
cause fine  and  flourishing,  while  serving  no  purpose  in  the 
work  of  the  exposition. 

In  a  review  of  the  vocation  of  the  preacher,  I  have  been 


^  1 6     The  Use  and  A  huse  of  Imagination. 

impressed  by  the  idea  formed  of  it  by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  M. 
Bellew.  The  evidence  is  contained  in  his  sermons.  I  have 
one  on  Paul  preaching  at  Athens  ;  the  course  of  descrip- 
tion is,  indeed,  not  new  ;  I  remember  to  have  met  with 
other  preachers  who  have  indulged  in  a  similar  vein  of 
fancy.  A  wise  preacher  will  tui*n  to  admirable  account  his 
wanderings  through  apostohc  scenes,  but  ]\Ir.  Bellew  shows 
us  how  not  to  use  such  travels  ;  page  on  page  is  occupied 
by  needless  and  impertinent  description.  As  in  the  fol- 
lowing, which  may  surely  be  called  for  a  sermon  a  ridicu- 
lous description  of — 

PAUL  PREACHIJ^G  AT  ATHENS. 

From  the  port  of  the  Piraeus,  at  the  distance  of  five  miles,  the 
Acropolis  of  Athens,  crowned  with  its  ruins,  rises.  It  is  visible 
to  the  traveller  above  the  surrounding  plain.  When  St.  Paul 
reached  the  port,  on  his  voyage  from  Thessalonica  to  Beraea, 
that  rock  would  meet  his  eye,  crowded  with  chaste  and  noble 
edifices  which  the  hands  of  Pericles  and  others  left  as  the  choic- 
est gems  of  architectural  taste  to  the  world.  Towering  above 
them  all  the  Apostle  would  first  behold  an  evidence  of  Greek 
idolatry,  in  the  gigantic  figure  of  Minerva  (cast  out  of  the 
brazen  trophies  of  war  taken  at  Marathon),  which,  grasping  its 
shield  and  spear,  overlooked  the  city  beneath,  as  the  angel  with 
outstretched  wings  at  present  overlooks  Rome  from  the  castle 
of  St.  Angelo.  From  the  spot  where  the  Apostle  landed,  up  to 
the  city,  there  had  formerly  been  one  continuous  street,  defended 
by  the  so-called  "  Long  Walls,"  which  memorable  fortifications 
united  Athens  with  its  port  of  the  Piraeus.  These  had  been 
destroyed.  Crossing  the  plain  amidst  their  ruins  the  Apostle 
would  enter  the  city  where  the  evidences  of  idolatry,  and  yet  of 
the  taste  and  splendor  of  the  Athenians,  lay  scattered  thickly 
around  him. 

He  would  at  once  be  surrounded  by  altars,  and  temples,  and 
statues  dedicated  to  Apollo,  Jupiter,  Mercury,  and  others,  skirt- 
ing on  every  side  the  edges  of  the  street  which  led  directly  from 
the  Pirajan  gateway  to  the  foot  of  the  Acropolis.     Approaching 


A  Specimen  of  Bathos.  3 1 7 

this  termination,  on  liis  left  rose  the  hill  called  the  Pnyx,  where 
the  Athenians  held  their  political  meetings.  Beyond  it  again 
stood  the  hill  of  the  Areopagus,  crowned  with  the  temple  of 
Mars.  To  that  hill  we  must  presently  proceed.  Before  him,  an 
immense  quadrangular  building  intercepted  his  ajDproach  to  the 
Acropolis.  This  was  the  Agora,  or  market-place  of  Athens,  and 
it  was  entered  on  every  side  by  porticoes,  surmounted  by  sta- 
tues, on  one  of  which  as  Paul  passed  along  he  may  have  looked 
upon  the  "  God  of  Day."  We  read  (ver.  17)  that  Paul  was  daily 
"  in  the  market  with  them  that  met  with  him."  This  Agora  or 
market-place  was  the  spot  where  (ver.  21)  the  Athenians  and 
strangers  spent  their  time  in  nothing  else  "  but  either  to  tell  or 
to  hear  some  new  thing."  It  was  in  reality  a  beautiful  square, 
whose  centre  was  planted  with  trees,  interspersed  with  statues. 
It  was  surrounded  by  cloisters,  probably  resembling  the  Campo 
Santo  at  Pisa,  and  its  walls  and  roofs  were  covered  with  joaint- 
ings  representing  the  most  memorable  incidents  in  Athenian 
history.  There  the  Grecian  artist  had  depicted  the  glorious 
achievement  at  Marathon.  This  colonnade  received  the  name 
of  the  Stoa  Pcecile,  or  Painted  Cloister,  and  it  became  the  favour- 
ite resort  of  Zeno  and  his  disciples  ;  whereby  they  received  the 
name  of  Stoics,  or  the  philosophers  who  frequented  the  painted 
Stoa.  In  the  gardens  within  the  court  were  the  statues  of  the 
great  men  of  Greece,  Demosthenes,  Solon,  and  others.  Here, 
again,  the  evidences  of  idolatry  met  the  Apostle's  view  !  Mer- 
cury, and  Hercules,  and  Apollo  received  the  popular  reverence 
in  the  midst  of  this  market-place.  The  spirit  of  Paul  was 
stirred  within  him  when  he  saw  the  city  wholly  given  to  idol- 
atry (v.  16).  The  porticoes  of  the  Agora  within  which  he  stood 
were  surmounted  with  idols.  Statues  of  gods  were  erected  in 
every  direction  within  its  cloisters — even  in  a  favored  retreat 
both  of  poets  and  philosophers  ;  of  which  Dr.  Doddridge  has 
well  remarked,  "  The  prevalence  of  such  a  variety  of  senseless 
superstitions  in  this  most  learned  and  polite  city,  which  all  its 
neighbours  beheld  with  so  much  veneration,  gives  a  lively  and 
affecting  idea  of  the  '  need  we  have  in  the  most  improved  state 
of  human  reason,  of  being  taught  by  a  Divine  revelation.'  " 
As  Paul  looked  beyond,  where  the  rock  of  the  Acropolis  rose 


2 1 8     The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

above  the  city,  he  would  behold  it  crowded  with  the  temples 
and  idols  of  a  corrupt  religion.  When  the  Apostle  "  saw  the 
city,"  as  he  passed  along,  he  would  no  doubt  ascend  the  Acropo- 
lis by  its  sole  entrance,  the  Propylsea,  erected  by  Pericles.  There 
would  stand  the  temple  of  Victory,  and  within,  or  about  its 
vestibule,  the  figures  of  Mercury,  Minerva,  and  Venus  :  there  he 
would  see  the  statues  of  Pericles,  and  also  of  the  Roman  Agrippa 
and  Augustus.  Upon  the  levelled  platform  of  the  Acropolis  he 
would  behold  everywhere  the  most  choice  specimens  of  Grecian 
statuary,  commemorating  the  mythological  histories  of  the  gods. 
But  superior  to  all,  he  would  stand  beneath  that  colossal  figure 
of  Minerva  holding  her  brazen-shield  above  the  head  of  Athens ; 
and  he  would  look  on  that  superb  triumph  of  art,  that  epic  of 
poetry  done  in  stone,  the  temple  of  Minerva,  the  Parthenon  ! — 
the  glorious  effort  of  the  proudest  days  of  Athens ;  and  even  to 
this  hour  in  its  ruins,  the  lasting  monument  which  tells  the 
grandeur  of  that  Greece  which  is  no  more  ! 

A  witty  writer,  upon  all  this,  has  conceived  one  preach- 
ing in  Westminster  in  some  coming  ages,  beginning  his 
sermon  with  a  brief  accomit  of  the  Eeform  Club,  then 
quitting  that  building,  the  Duke  of  York's  Column  and 
Waterloo  Place  claim  a  moment's  notice.  Proceeding  along 
Pall  Mali,  the  eye  rests  upon  the  equestrian  statue  of 
George  HE.  The  University  Club  suggests  a  digression  to 
the  Isis  and  the  Cam.  Presently,  on  the  left  the  Eoyal 
Academy  rises  above  Trafalgar  Square,  and  the  pictures 
which  are  now  exhibiting  there  wiU  claim  a  hasty  criticism. 
The  statue  of  Lord  Nelson,  at  Charing  Cross,  is  to  an 
EngHshman  what  the  brazen  Pallas  of  the  Acropolis  was  to 
an  Athenian,  and  therefore  it  must  not  be  forgotten ;  that 
statue  looks  down  upon  the  speaker.  Nor  must  it  be  for- 
gotten that  Sir  Charles  Napier  stood  erect  and  stiff,  and  Dr. 
Jenner  reclined  meditatively,  and  the  fountains  played 
feebly,  and  the  little  boys  vigorously,  in  the  square.  The 
hoary  piles  and  the  ancient  memories  of  the  Abbey  and  the 
HaU  will  next  demand  attention,  and  so  on  ;  but  what  a  re- 


The  Use  of  Allegory,  310 

markable  thing  if  the  preacher  should  imagine  that  he  is 
piercing  the  conscience  or  preaching  the  Gospel  aU  this 
time !  Most  of  Mr.  Bellew's  sermons  display  this  mere 
artistic  faculty,  this  gathering  and  disposing  of  mental  stuff 
and  wares  which  have  been  in  some  sense  apprehended  by 
the  intellect,  but  which  have  never  approached,  and  still  less 
been  absorbed  into,  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  truths 
and  things. 

I  think  the  question  in  every  instance  should  be, — Does 
it  help  ?  Does  that,  mode  of  putting  it  help  ?  Would  it 
help  me  ?  and  a  canon  of  our  speech  for  all  times  should 
be  the  canon  of  the  old  poet — not  too  much  of  anything  ; 
to  over  color  is  to  destroy  all  effect ;  not  too  much  detail — 
to  know  when  to  stop  ;  not  too  many  words — to  overlay  the 
ornament  is  to  destroy  all  the  beauty,  the  harmony,  the 
impressiveness,  by  destroying  proportion.  Perhaps  in  the 
preacher's  order  of  teaching,  we  must  often  use  more  than 
strict  good  taste  does  allow,  because  we  have  to  stimulate 
spiritual  and  even  intellectual  appetites ;  the  severe  style 
tells  on  educated  and  refined  minds  in  a  state  of  prepara- 
tion ;  but  just  as  pictures  are  for  children,  so  also  pictorial 
words  and  emotions  which  embody  and  even  startle,  must 
be  used  in  dealing  with  the  multitudes.  Still  the  mind,  as 
it  prepares  itself,  should  come  back  to  the  question,'WiU  that 
help  ?  Is  that  too  much  ?  This  will  compel  the  speaker  to 
feel  his  own  images — ^his  own  language  ;  that  which  is  real 
to  him  will  usually  be  felt  to  be  real  to  the  audience  he  ad- 
dresses ;  not  in  mere  copiousness,  but  in  selectness  is 
power  ;  not  in  the  crowd  of  illustrations,  but  in  the  distinct- 
ness of  one  is  power.  Even  as  we  are  lost  in  a  gallery  of 
paintings,  until  we  take  refuge  in  one,  and  permit  it  to  exer- 
cise its  impression. 

But  you  have  to  manage  your  text  by  illustration,  and  on 
this  I  must  dwell  a  little  longer.  You  need  good  skill 
here  :  good  taste  is  only  the  -onison  of  sound  knowledge 


3  20     The  Use  and  A  huse  of  Imagination. 

and  correct  feeling;  but  you  will  greatly  need  good  taste 
here,  as  a  rule.  If  an  illustration  adds  at  all  to  the  Hght 
in  your  owo.  mind,  it  will  probably  add  to  the  hght  upon 
the  text  in  the  minds  of  your  audience;  and  first,  let  me 
caution  you  against  the  improper  use  of  allegory.  Do  you 
ever  feel  any  tendencies  to  the  use  of  it  ?  It  needs  super- 
lative genius  to  be  tolerable — a  bold,  strong,  Bunyan-like, 
Christmas  Evans-like  mind,  may  recite  an  allegory  hke 
some  lofty  poem;  but  be  you  very  cautious  how  you  jield 
to  the  seduction. 

Nay,  I  must  say,  be  cautious,  not  only  how  you  invent 
the  allegory  for  the  pulpit  yourselves,  but  how  you  alle- 
gorize Divine  Truth.  No  doubt  we  do  find  many  instances 
of  such  a  use  in  Scripture,  but  when  Origen  spiritualizes 
the  account  of  Abraham's  denying  his  wife,  polygamy,  the 
patriarchy,  and  Noah's  drunkenness,  we  must  feel  how  dan- 
gerous is  the  whole  ground,  and  especially  as  many  minds 
will  not  fail  to  make  this  their  very  method  of  iuterpretation. 
When  men  use  the  language  of  the  Bible  as  the  mere  in- 
strument of  a  cultivated  fancy,  to  make  their  style  attract- 
ive or  impressive,  it  is  needless  to  say  they  are  guilty  of  a 
great  irreverence  toward  its  Divine  Author;  but  there  is  a 
danger,  lest  we  also  err  in  making  the  story  the  vehicle  for 
one's  fancy.  How  eminently  this  was  the  case  with  the 
Church  of  Alexandria.*  Some  writers,  whom  we  greatly 
respect,  have  made  sad  nonsense,  even  of  some  portions  of 
the  Book  of  God.  Let  us  remember,  that  while  we  must 
not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  indirect  and  instructive  apphca- 
tions  of  which  a  text  is  capable,  we  must  never  so  reason 
as  to  forget  that  there  is  a  sense  pecuharly  its  own  ;  it  is 
this  meaning  which  we  are  especially  to  unfold.  What  do 
you  think  of  this  method  of  handling  a  text  ? — I  am  sorry 
to  say  I  extract  it  from  the  sermon  of  a  French  refugee, 

*  See  Dr.  J.  H.  Newman's  History  of  Avians,  &c.    Chap.  i.  p.  7. 


Improper  Use  of  Allegory,  321 

Father  Gousset,  from  Proverbs  xxx.  18,  19. — "  There  are 
three  things  which  are  too  wonderful  for  me;  yea,  four, 
wliich  I  know  not :  the  way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air ;  the 
way  of  a  serpent  upon  a  rock;  the  way  of  a  ship  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea;  and  the  way  of  a  man  with  a  maid." 
Gousset  says,  "  The  way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air  is  the  way 
of  Jesus  Christ  ascending  to  heaven.  The  way  of  a  serpent 
upon  a  rock  is  the  way  of  Jesus  Christ  in  that  rock  in  a 
cavern  of  which  he  was  buried;  there  remain  no  scent 
by  wliich  the  place  of  his  sepulture  could  be  known.  The 
way  of  a  ship  in  the  sea  denotes  the  way  of  Jesus  Christ 
among  his  countrymen  in  the  course  of  his  ministry,  which 
left  no  more  traces  among  them  than  a  ship  leaves  in  the 
ocean.  The  way  of  a  man  with  a  maid  signifies  the  mira- 
culous birth  of  Christ  of  a  virgin."  And  the  reason  as- 
signed for  this  exposition  is,  "  That  the  wise  man  speaks  of 
wonderful  things  ;  now,  there  is  nothing  wonderful  in  these 
things  taken  literally,  but  taken  aUegorically,  they  are  won- 
derful events  indeed !  "  This  is  extorting  a  sense  by  bom- 
barding a  text.  The  good  man  also  must  have  had  a  vast 
conception  of  his  own  knowledge  not  to  have  perceived  that 
the  wise  man  did  in  the  text  really  express  some  of  the 
greatest  mysteries  of  things, — in  the  motion  of  birds  the 
sleep  of  reptiles,  the  marvels  of  navigation,  and  the  ways 
of  human  hearts. 

Ah  this  is  nonsense,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  impossible 
to  read  the  Scriptures  much,  and  to  meditate  upon  their 
histories,  without  frequently  feeling  a  class  of  emotions 
which  should  naturally  lead  you  to  carry  them  into  the 
pulpit,  and  usually  such  meditations,  when  they  come  to  a 
thoughtful,  and  prayerful,  and  pious  mind,  will  supply  ma- 
terial very  fitting  for  discourse.  I  consider  there  is  a  law 
of  Scripture — symbolism.  There  is  a  gi-eat  prejudice,  I  be- 
heve,  in  what  is  called  the  educated  mmistry,  against  the 
method  of  taking  as  a  text  some  Scriptural  illustration,  ajid 
14* 


322     Tlie  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

tracing  it  through  a  series  of  analogies  and  resemblances. 
Surely  this  is  not  the  only  method  in  the  pulpit ;  but  just 
as  surely  it  is  a  method — a  method,  not  necessarily  out  of 
keeping  with  good  taste  ;  a  method  admirably  calculated 
for  discursive  instruction,  level  to  the  majority  of  hearers. 
If  it  was  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  mind  of  the  Spirit 
to  suggest  to  the  holy  men  of  God,  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  such  an  image,  surely  it  is  not  beneath  the  dignity 
of  the  modem  ministry  to  seek  out  such  unstrained  modem 
significations  as  may  tend  to  edification.  May  I,  without 
apparent  conceit,  introduce  two  sketches  of  my  own,  as  il- 
lustrations of  this  dealiQg  with  sacred  images.  The  first 
from  the  text  referred  to  : 

I. — THE   WAY   OF  AN  EAGLE  IN  THE   AIR. — ^PrOV.  XXX.  18,  19, 

The  works  of  creation  are,  when  they  are  considered,  ways  to 
the  Creator.  Wherever  the  soul  turns  itself,  it  finds  God  in  the 
very  same  objects  through  which  it  forsook  Him."  Thus,  in  all 
ages,  if  the  things  and  objects  of  nature  have  been  mysterious, 
the  mind,  fruitful  in  contemplation,  has  turned  those  objects 
into  reflections  of  Divine  wisdom  ;  and  in  the  Book  of  God  we 
find  them  turned  into  the  deepest  and  highest  wisdom.  Thus, 
in  these  words  of  Agur,  many  things  became  to  him  the  inlets 
of  wise  reflection,  especially  he  said,  "  I  see  four  wonderful 
things  :  1.  An  eagle  in  the  air  ;  that  sublime  thing,  overcoming, 
walking  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  sailing  through  the  thunder- 
storm. How  wonderful !  living  where  lightnings  play,  able  to 
gaze  at  the  sun ;  this,  he  said,  is  wonderful, — ''  the  way  of  an 
eagle  in  the  air."  S.  A  serpent,  that  long,  cruel  creature,  its 
coils,  its  rapid  spring,  its  strange  interlocking  of  rings,  its  mar- 
vellous vertebrae,  this  is  wonderful — ''  the  way  of  a  serpent  upon 
a  rock."  3.  Man  imitating  nature — "  the  way  of  a  ship  in  the 
sea" — that  dead  yet  living  bird  of  art  and  science ;  and  still, 
after  all  these  years  have  passed,  art  has  nothing  more  graceful, 
more  amazingly  buoyant  and  natural,  than  "the  way  of  a  ship 
in  the  sea."  4.  And,  more  wonderful  than  all,  the  relations  of 
hearts.     How  two  people,  who  never  saw  each  other,  meet,  and 


The  Way  of  an  Eagle  in  the  Air,      323 

how  a  life-long  relationship  rises,  so  that  if  one  heart  is  torn 
from  the  other  the  survivor  pines  and  almost  dies. — "  The  way 
of  a  man  with  a  maid." 

I  touch  one  of  these  wonders — "  the  way  of  an  eagle  in  the 
air."  And  yet  we  say  the  eagle  is  one  of  the  highest  and  most 
famous  images  of  the  Book  of  God.  When  Ezekiel  beheld  bis 
first  great  vision,  he  saw  God's  government  carried  on  by  four 
agencies,  of  which  "  the  fourth  had  the  face  of  an  eagle"  (Ezek. 
X.  14),  and  like  this  was  the  vision  of  John  in  Revelation  iv.  7 — 
"  the  fourth  creature  was  like  a  flying  eagle."  Not  very  difficult 
is  the  interpretation  here ;  so  God  carries  on  His  government ; 
there  is  that  in  its  mode  of  procedure  which  answers  to  such  a 
sublime  analogy.  The  eagle  is  evidently  the  figure  for  diviner 
things ;  and  through  all  the  Fathers,  and  in  moat  ages ;  while 
Matthew  has  been  the  Gospel  to  which  has  been  assigned  the 
lion — the  Gospel  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  Gospel  of  the  King- 
dom of  God;  and  to-Mark,  the  man — the  more  human  aspects; 
andlo  the  more  sacrificial  Gospel  of  St.  Luke  ;  to  St.  John  has 
been  assigned  the  eagle.  It  is  the  Gospel  of  the  heights  of  di- 
vine contemplation  and  divine  love.  He  sets  forth  our  Lord's 
Godhead  in  the  higher  sense.  Everything  earthly  with  him 
only  introduces  things  heavenly ;  the  divine  attributes  break  al- 
ways through  the  veil  of  words.  As  St.  Augustine  says,  "  How 
sublime  ought  those  things  to  be  of  which  he  treats  who  is  com- 
pared to  the  eagle."  Thus  the  very  ways  of  God  himself,  in  His 
government  and  administration,  are  as  "  the  way  of  an  eagle  in 
the  air."  But  I  purpose,  this  morning,  to  look  for  hints  of  the 
divine  life  in  man  from  following  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air, 
and  I  shall  enlarge  a  little  on  four  remarks  : 
I.  It  is  heavy,  and  yet  it  flies. 
II.  The  air  resists  its  flight,  and  yet  it  flies. 

III.  The  resistance  helps  it,  and  therefore  it  flies. 

IV.  There  are  extraordinary  and  Divine  contrivances  to  aid 
it,  and  therefore  it  flies. 

I.  It  is  heavy,  and  yet  it  flies. — It  weighs  ten,  fourteen,  I  be- 
lieve, twenty  pounds.  How  remarkable  that  it  should  overcome 
its  gravitation,  that  its  weight  should  even  be  a  momentum  to 
it;  not  like  a  balloon,  a  part  of  the  air,  as  it  were,  carried  to  and 


324     The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

fro  of  the  air,  borne  hither  and  thither,  but  always  a  weight,  yet 
ever  able  to  fly  ;  is  not  this  wonderful  ?  This  is  the  way  of  the 
eagle  in  the  air.  This  also  should  be  the  way  of  the  human 
soul ;  the  soul  has  its  gravitation  to  overcome — is  there  not  a 
weight  ?  What  is  the  first  thing  in  the  Christian  course  ?  Is  it 
not  the  "  laying  aside  of  every  weight  ? "  Does  not  every  one 
feel  this  ?  To  be  a  man,  to  be  a  woman,  is  to  have  the  w^iglit 
that  fastens  to  the  earth,  and  would  keep  us  here  for  ever  ;  it  is 
m  matter,  which  hangs  upon  us  heavy,  like  lead ;  it  is  in  the 
blood,  it  is  in  the  passions,  it  forms  temperament.  Christian  ! 
you  must  fly.  The  flesh  is  weak  in  that  it  is  heavy.  Can 
weighty  things  ascend  ?  think  of  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air, 
and  overcome.  Then  make  the  sublime  description  in  Job  of 
Elihu  yours  (Job  xxxix.  27-29),  "Mount  up  and  make  thy  nest 
on  high,  dwell  and  abide  on  the  rock,  upon  the  crag  of  the 
rock,  and  the  strong  place." 

II.  Remark,  of  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air,  the  air  resists 
it,  and  yet  it  flies.  The  air  which  around  you  prevents,  by  its 
weight,  your  falling,  resists  the  eagle  also  in  advancing.  It  is 
gross  and  heavy  in  itself,  and  there  is  a  pressure  upon  it  from 
without,  yet  wonderful  is  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air.  So  you 
must  fly,  and  let  me  say,  that  one  thing  by  w^hich  we  know  w^e 
fly  is  resistance  ;  a  feather  does  not  fly,  a  balloon  does  not  fly,  a 
kite  does  not  fly, — these  float,  there  is  no  resistance.  There  is 
resistance  in  ourselves  ;  at  first  we  do  not  desire  to  rise,  we  find 
the  earth  tempting  and  pleasant  to  our  selfishness,  and,  as 
Charles  Wesley  says : 

Angels  your  march  oppose 

Who  still  in  strength  excel, 
Your  secret,  sworn  eternal  foes, 

Countless,  invisible. 

With  rage  that  never  ends, 

Their  hellish  arts  they  try ; 
Legions  of  dire  malicious  fiends, 

And  spirits  enthroned  on  high. 

Thus  it  \^  ^  wre^t)ing ;  "  the  prince  of  power  in  the  air  works 


The  Way  of  an  Eagle  in  the  Air.         325 

in  the  children  of  disobedience."  Thus  we  have  "spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places."  Yet  you  must  make  your  way  like 
that  of  the  eagle  in  the  air.  And  how  hard — who  overcomes? 
how  hardly  shall  they,  for  w^hom  the  w^orld  has  done  its  best, 
"  mount  up  with  wings"  their  way  as  that  of  an  eagle  in  the  air  ? 

III.  This  is  a  negative  side  ;  there  is  a  positive — the  way  of 
the  eagle  in  the  air^-it  is  when  the  resistance  helps  it,  and 
therefore  it  flies.  There  is  vital  force  within,  and  not  only  so, 
the  air  is  elastic.  As  it  flies  it  beats  on  the  wing,  but,  as  it 
beats,  by  its  own  hard  blows  on  the  air,  every  blow  lifts  the 
wing  up  again,  and  there  is  a  wonderful  arrangement  in  those 
wings  to  air ;  and  so  the  air  gives  way,  and  the  triumphant*  bird 
passes  through.  This  is  the  action  of  a  wing,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  strokes  in  a  minute,  I  understand.  So  swift,  so  rapid ;  slow, 
and  yet  so  swift.  Hence  the  Apostle's  jubilant  shout,  "  We  are 
troubled  on  every  side,  yet  not  distressed,  cast  down,  not  de- 
stroyed." So  we  are  helped,  "  When  my  heart  is  overwhelmed, 
lead  me  to  the  rock  that  is  higher  than  I."  "  Because  thou  hast 
been  my  help,  etc."  God  knows  this.  Do  you  remember  an 
admirable  paper  by  the  Country  Parson,  on  "  Men  who  have  Car- 
ried Weight  in  Life "  ?  Some  men's  progress  seems  so  small 
compared  with  others' — slow,  ah,  but  although  to  you,  they  seem 
to  make  no  progress,  to  angels,  they  do.  Theirs  is  the  way  of 
the  eagle  in  the  air. 

IV.  There  are  extraordinary  and  divine  contrivances  to  help, 
and  therefore  it  flies.  It  is  a  wonderful  picture  of  the  universal- 
ity of  the  arrangement, — the  divine  pliability  and  adjustment  of 
the  laws  of  nature ;  that  upper  convex  surface  of  the  wing ;  that 
lower  concavity  of  each  wing,  a  kind  of  umbrella,  turned  inside 
out,  to  catch  the  wind,  and  so  becomes  a  valve,  so  that  the  force 
may  be  gained  below,  and  be  harmless  and  helpful  above  ;  every 
feather  is  a  valve.  This  is  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air.  And 
now,  can  it  be  thought  that  God  has  designed  such  wonderful 
contrivances  for  a  poor  bird's  w^ing,  and  none  for  souls  ?  nay, 
what  contrivances  and  helps  has  God  given;  they  are  in  our 
spirits  themselves,  in  their  mould  and  make.  There  is  con- 
cealed strength  in  souls  for  dark  hours ;  powers  abortive  and 
unknown,  waiting  to  be  employed  ;   these  faculties  were  not 


326     Tlie  Use  and  Abuse  of  Imagination. 

made  for  night  and  for  sin,  they  were  for  the  soul.  Thus  come 
the  special  provisions  of  grace,  grace  is  spiritual  contrivance, 
and  in  every  experience  "  He  giveth  more  grace."  And  so  the 
way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air. 

What  an  eagle  was  Paul,  who  saw  afar  off,  entered,  and  saw 
unspeakable  things.  Behold  him  there  gazing  on  the  sun  from 
his  rock, — "  None  of  these  things  move  me,"  "  I  am  persuaded," 
etc.  What  an  eagle  was  John,  who  saw  a  door  opened  in 
heaven,  the  Lord  in  the  midst  of  the  golden  candlesticks,  and 
left  his  testimony,  "  That  which  we  have  seen  and  heard,  etc., 
declare  we."  What  an  eagle  was  Isaiah,  the  old  man  who  said 
*'  They  that  wait  od  the  Lord,"  etc. 

Now  apply.  Are  you  conscious  of  the  weight  ?  Do  you  re- 
sist ?  Do  you  feel  obstacles  falling,  giving  way  ?  Do  you  feel 
and  find  divine  help  ?  Have  you  glimpses  ?  and  do  you  find  af- 
fections rising  ? 

Hereafter,  you  shall  have  exceeding  great  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory.  Look  on  the  low  scenes  of  the  earth,  on  the  sun,  moon, 
and  battle-plains  beneath,  you  shall  enter  into  the  secret  place 
of  the  Most  High,  the  chambers  of  everlasting  rest. 

My  second  illustration  is: 

II. — god's  righteousness  like  the  great  mountains. 
— Ps.  XXX.  6. 
Great  mountains ;  few  of  us  have  seen  them,  but  there  are 
those  who,  having  seen  them,  find  their  hearts  almost  aching  to 
behold  them  again.  How  is  it  they  are  so  awfully,  yet  so  vener- 
ably and  beautifully  dear  to  us  ?  They  are  only  dead  masses  of 
unfeeling  rock,  yet  they  possess  the  power  to  awaken  in  us  all 
feelings ;  they  are  always  differing,  and  changing,  and  yet  they 
are  always  the  same ;  nights  and  storms  roll  down  upon  them, 
and  clothe  and  conceal  them ;  and  then  mornings  come ;  and 
sunsets  and  sunrisings  behold  those  mists  wrought  into  rose- 
hues  by  rays  that  sleep  there  lovingly.  They  hold  the  thunders 
— often  when  it  is  clear  below,  storms  seem  to  live  and  contend 
like  spirits  there,  and  long,  low,  protracted  thunders  mutter,  as 
if  spirits  talked  in  their  recesses,  from  peak  to  peak,  from  crag 
to  crag.     Snows  and  ice  clothe  their  summits  periDctually.     The 


God^s  Righteousness  like  the  Mountains,     327 

traveller,  among  their  lower  passes,  hears  the  boom  and  toll, 
and  says  that  is  an  avalanche  falling.  Out  of  their  heart,  as  he 
passes  along,  the  wanderer  beholds  the  vast  glacier — the  stif- 
fened ice  torrents  that  "  stopped  amidst  their  maddest  plunge ;  " 
ice  falls  now,  that  down  enormous  ravines  sweep  amain,  but 
there  they  stand,  pillars  of  creation,  monumental  piles  of  past 
existences,  tombs  of  old  creations,  mausoleums,  cenotaphs  of 
ancient  worlds,  wonders  and  mysteries.  All  things  are  mys- 
teries ;  but  mountains — so  human,  yet  so  cold  ;  so  mighty  and 
massive,  and  yet  so  silent  and  so  unmoying — the  heart  must  be 
cold  indeed,  that  does  not  feel  the  power  of  the  great  moun- 
tains. 

David  looked  up  at  them,  and  he  said.  They  are  like  the  recti- 
tude—the holiness,  the  righteousness  of  God.  He  had  not  seen 
the  greatest,  Mont  Blanc,  the  Himalayas,  the  Andes ;  but  he  saw 
Horeb,  and  Sinai,  and  Lebanon ;  and  there  is  that,  I  suppose, 
about  all  these  which  make  them  seem  more  than  they  are. 
Even  as  the  small  hills  of  Cumberland  and  Scotland  do  for  us 
almost  as  much  as  Switzerland,  the  Alps  and  Apennines.  You 
and  I  also  can  step  out  this  evening,  and  talk  with  God  among 
the  mountains.  Let  us  talk  of  God — how  high,  how  vast  I 
That  word  God ! — what  mysteries  does  it  hold — does  it  repre- 
sent !  "  The  thought,"  said  Job,  "  of  God  was  a  terror  to  me, 
and  by  reason  of  his  highness  I  could  not  endure."  We  saw 
how  Job  found  all  the  suggestions  of  the  great  mountains  bring- 
ing the  mind  to  reflect  upon  the  inscrutableness  of  God,  but  all 
as  hints  and  suggestions.  What  a  slight  thing  is  man  travers- 
ing the  shoulder  of  some  steep  and  awful  mountain  !  What  an 
insect !  Yet  lie  lives  and  it  is  dead  and  cold.  To  him  it  may, 
with  its  labyrinths  of  peaks,  and  passes,  and  glaciers,  be  called 
incomprehensible;  its  cold;  its  glaring  heat;  its  regions,  and 
platforms  of  storm  ;  aspects  which  make  it  like  an  abstraction  ; 
again,  which  make  it  like  some  dread  personification  and  em- 
bodiment of  power.  David  looked  at  it,  and  thought :  "  Hoar 
and  solemn  peak,  thou  art  like  the  righteousness  of  God,  mani- 
fold in  aspect,  but  always  one,  and  in  thyself  always  still." 

L  I  suppose,  what  David  first  meant  to  imply  by  this  right- 
eousness of  God  like  the  great  mountains  was, — that  it  was 


328     Tlie  Um  and  Ahiise  of  Imagination. 

everywhere  to  be  seen.  A  mountain  is  lofty,  prominent,  can  be 
seen  at  a  great  distance — wliy  the  Himalayas  can  be  seen  nearly 
two  liunclred  and  fifty  miles  away.  Grandly  it  rises  out  of  the 
vale  beneath,  like  a  monarch  over  the  scene.  Scripture,  you 
note — you  ought  to  notice  it — involves  itself  in  the  righteous- 
ness of  God,  not  even  His  goodness  so  much  as  His  righteous- 
ness, not  His  love  so  much  as  His  holiness.  I  do  not  wonder 
at  this,  the  most  anxious  question  a  man  can  put  is  this,  ^'  Will 
the  judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right  ? "  No  question  is  so  im- 
mense, so  vital ;  that  question  settled  ii^ell^  all  must  l)e  well.  It 
therefore  opens  grand  views  of  the  righteousness  of  God,  in- 
volves itself  in  this,  stakes  itself  on  this.  This  is  what  short- 
sighted and  selfish  man  thinks  he  cannot  always  see.  But 
mountains  are  distinctly  seen,  so  the  righteousness  of  God  is 
distinctly  seen.  His  rectitude,  infinitely  right ;  the  Bible  is  the 
revelation  of  righteousness  ;  and  the  long  ages  as  they  roll,  to 
those  able  to  read,  tell  the  tale  of  righteousness.  Read  it  in 
law,  that  groove  and  line  of  rail  laid  down  by  God  ;  read  it  in 
nations,  their  rise,  decline,  and  fall ;  read  it  in  conscience,  that 
pulse  of  a  moral  nature  throbbing  after  right  in  man ;  immortal 
and  immovable  principles  in  nature,  in  the  history  of  men,  in 
the  human  soul.  But  what  is  it  in  God  !  What  know  we  of 
righteousness  ?  Oh,  we  must  not  look  in  ourselves  to  see  it,  we 
must  look  out  and  look  up.  It  is  there — vast,  immutable,  eter- 
nal, it  is  like  the  great  mountains.  Elevate  the  tone  of  your 
thought ;  do  not  indulge  in  the  cynic's  sneers,  those  "  arrows 
which  fly  by  day."  Believe — and  see  it  in  God  right,  our  sense 
of  self  belies  us.  Suppose  we  died  now,  and  had  no  immortal- 
ity, still  could  we  not  look  up,  with  tearful  eyes  and  bless  Him 
for  all,  incomparably  beyond  ourselves  and  our  desert.  Where 
«  is  this  righteousness — where  is  it  ?  All  this  agony,  misery,  ruin 
— well,  it  is  working  through  all  that.  "  I  will,"  said  David, 
"  remember  the  years  of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High."  I 
will  remember  His  eternity,  and  my  brief  time. 

II.  But  although  so  prominent,  its  foundations  are  out  of 

sight. — *'Who  sunk  thy  sunless  pillars  deep  in  earth."     The 

highest  mountain's  peak,  it  is  said,  is  not  more  than  five  miles, 

.  the  depth   of  the  sea  has  been,  I  believe,  ascertained  to  be 


God'^8  Righteousness  lilce  the  Mountains,     329 

eleven,  and  liere  are  the  roots,  nay,  rather  the  body,  and  the 
portions  of  the  everlasting  hills,  like  the  great  mountains.  And 
all  these  weighed !  "  The  mountains  in  scales,  the  hills  in  a 
balance!"  Exact  their  proportion  literally,  to  their  dynamic 
intensity  or  force,  regulated  for  many  purposes.  So  live,  yet  out 
of  sight.  And  yet  how  often  the  roots  of  God's  righteousness 
though  concealed,  are  revealed  to  great  experiences,  as  when 
Jonah  says  in  his  grief,  "  he  went  down  to  the  bottom  of  the 
the  mountains ; "  or  David  sings  that  (2  Sam.  xxii.  16)  "the 
foundations  of  the  world  were  discovered." 

in.  Like  the  great  mountains  the  righteousness  may  be 
ascertained,  although  not  comprehended. — Mountains  the  high- 
est may  be  measured ;  men  have  measured  mountains.  Very 
wonderful  are  the  achievements  of  trigonometry ;  and  many 
have  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  all  about  God,  His  righteous- 
ness, and  the  Trinity,  who  would  be  quite  at  a  loss  here.  You 
see  the  men  with  their  posts,  and  chains,  carefully  taking  the 
base  line  for  their  calculations,  then  they  will  reduce  that  base 
line  by  multiples  and  fractions,  and  then  by  their  theodolites 
they  will  carry  on  the  process  of  what  they  call  triangulation^ 
and  so  measure  without  foot,  or  rule,  or  step,  heights  of  build- 
ings, mountains,  and  distances  of  worlds.  Now,  God's  right- 
eousness is  like  the  great  mountains,  God  Himself  gives  to  us 
a  base  of  calculation,  and  it  is  "  the  righteousness  of  God  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord  ;  "  and  then  as  the  surveyor  goes  on 
from  point  to  point,  calculation  to  calculation,  so  "  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  is  revealed,"  as  Paul  declares  "  from  faith  to  faith." 
Christ  make  Himself  finite  that  I  may  ascend  to  infinite  conclu- 
sions, but  there  must  be  the  base-line  for  commencement,  then 
all  follows.  How  wonderfully  Paul  went  on  from  this.  How 
divine  and  how  sublime.     "  Oh  the  depths — oh  the  heights." 

Hence,  IV.  Like  the  great  mountains  God's  righteousness  is 
rich  and  precious.    Mountains  are  rich  : — 

1.  In  minerals^  their  caves,  their  recesses,  gold,  coal,  silver; 
there  the  gem,  the  ruby  lurks;  there  the  opal,  with  its  soft 
edges ;  there  the  basilisk  glare  of  the  emerald  ;  the  sheen  of  the 
ruby.    What  streams  in  God's  righteousness,  unknowTi,  unseen, 


330     The  Use  and  A  huse  of  Imagination, 

unresolved,  infinite,  plan,  power—  all  righteous  and  infinite  i)ur- 
pose  and  in  promise. 

2.  Ill  pastures. — Mountains  furnish  the  way  for  the  nations ; 
there  they  spread  along  the  hill  sides.  Nations  have  sought 
them.  And  nomadic  and  agricultural  people  have  followed 
their  chain  along  the  hill  side. 

3.  In  refreshments. — Illustration — Rivers  gushing  from  moun- 
tains, as  in  Plinlimmon. 

4.  In  fortifications. — What,  then,  is  His  glorious  position  of 
whom  it  is  said,  "  His  foundation  is  in  the  holy  mountains." 

I  spoke  of  the  evil  method  of  allegory,  or  the  continued 
figure.  I  could  give  you  many  illustrations  of  this  from 
the  old  writers;  they  are  often  like  the  old  pageantry  which 
met  Elizabeth  in  her  royal  progress.  They  attempt  to  em- 
body abstract  quaHties,  and  they  often  fail  in  their  attempt. 
I  remember  one  in  which  we  are  told  how  Truth  hved  in 
great  honor;  but  through  the  envy  of  her  enemies,  she  was 
disgraced,  banished  out  of  the  city;  sitting  on  a  dunghill, 
sad  and  discontented,  a  chariot  comes  by  attended  with  a 
great  troop  towards  her.  Soon  Truth  perceived  who  it 
was — ^her  greatest  enemy,  the  Lady  Lie,  clad  in  a  change- 
able colored  taffety,  her  coach  covered  with  clouds  of  aU 
the  colors  of  the  rainbow.  Impudence  and  Hypocrisy, 
attending  on  one  side,  and  Slander  and  Detraction  on  the 
other,  and  Perjury  ushering  along  many  more — more  than 
a  good  many  in  the  train. 

When  the  Lady  Lie  came  up  to  Truth,  she  commanded 
her  to  be  carried  captive  for  the  greater  triumph  ;  at  night 
she  fared  well,  and  would  want  for  nothing ;  only  when 
morning  came  the  Lady  Lie  said  she  had  to  pay ;  and 
Truth  had  to  pay  for  all,  and  the  next  night  was  hke  the 
last.  But  when  the  Lady  Lie  was  brought  before  the 
judge.  Impudence  and  Hypocrisy  justified  their  lady.  Per- 
jury cleared  her,  and  Slander  and  Detraction  laid  all  the 
blame  with  Truth  ;  she  was  called  upon  to  plead,  and  when 


Illustrations  of  Ancient  Allegory,         3 3 1 

she  could  only  say,  "  Not  guilty,"  and  was  about  to  be  con- 
demned, Time,  an  eloquent,  grave,  experienced  counsellor, 
stepped  up,  and  begged  to  unravel  the  matter,  lest  the  ui- 
nocent  should  suffer  for  the  guilty.  Then  Time  began  to 
dispel  the  clouds  from  the  Lady  Lie's  chariot,  unmasked 
her  ugliness,  and  unveiled  her  followers,  and  Truth  by  Time 
was  cleared  and  set  at  large. 

And  all  this  is  to  illustrate  the  Scripture  doctrine  of  truth ! 

Another  Kke  allegory,  often  used  in  the  pulpit,  you  will 
know  ;  of  the  master  of  an  orchard  who  committed  it  to 
the  keeping  of  two  servants,  and  went  on  his  journey  ;  but 
one  was  blind,  and  one  was  lame  ;  the  lame  one  saw  the 
beauty  of  the  fruit  and  told  it  to  the  blind  fellow,  and  he 
said :  "  Had  I  the  use  of  my  Hmbs  I  would  soon  be  mas- 
ter of  those  apples  ; "  and  the  blind  man  said,  "  Had  I  but 
my  eyes  my  will  is  good  if  thefniit  is  good,"  so  they  united 
their  strength,  and  joined  their  forces  together.  The  whole 
blind  man  took  the  well-sighted  lame  man,  and  so  they 
reached  their  master's  apples,  and  took  them  away.  When, 
therefore,  the  master  returned,  they  each  framed  his  own 
excuse  ;  the  blind  man  said  he  could  not  so  much  as  see  the 
tree  whereon  they  grew  ;  and  the  lame  man  said  he  ought 
not  to  be  suspected,  for  he  had  no  Hmbs  to  cHmb.  But  the 
wise  master  perceived  the  ignoble  craft  of  his  two  servants, 
he  put  them,  as  they  were,  the  one  upon  the  other's  shoul- 
ders, and  punished  them  both  together.  And  all  this  is  to 
show  that  sin  is  neither  of  the  body  nor  the  soul,  but  it  is 
the  common  act  of  the  body  and  of  soul.  They  are  Simeon 
and  Levi,  brothers  and  partners  in  mischief,  and  therefore 
God,  in  His  just  judgment,  wiU  punish  both  body  and  soul 
together,  if  not  repaired  and  redeemed  by  Christ.  And 
this  allegory,  first  derived  from  the  Rabbins,  has  been  used 
through  long  generations  of  writers.* 

*  These,  and  many  more  such,  will  be  found  in  Spencer's  "  Store- 
house of  Similes  "  (1658),  already  referred  to.    The  last  in  Hyman 


332     The  Use  and  A  hiise  of  Imagination. 

Imagination,  I  have  said,  seizes  the  innermost.  And  this 
is  the  definition  which  has  been  given  of  it  by  RusMn  ;  be- 
cause it  does  this,  it  realizes  vividly,  and  hence,  again,  it 
represents  distinctly.  This  is  not  the  time  or  place  to  stay 
to  analyze  the  faculty  ;  but  these  are  its  functions  and  its 
manifestation.  In  its  exercise,  genius  is  in  its  highest  ful- 
ness. It  is  the  sum  of  all  highest  po vipers  in  man.  It  is  in 
its  highest  exercise  the  focus  and  complement  of  all  human 
power.  "  The  men  of  imagination,^'  said  Xapoleon,  "  rule 
the  world."  It  is  in  highest  men  "the  retina  of  the  uni- 
verse."* It  is  the  power  of  heart  and  mind  made  intense 
by  their  marriage.  It  is  the  faculty  of  attention  or  inten- 
sity ;  it  is  not  the  less  the  faculty  of  strong  affections.  It 
may  be  possible  to  have  the  imagination  of  fire  and  the 
heart  of  ice,  but  not  upon  the  objects  interesting  to  it ;  to- 
wards these,  it  is  at  once  affectionate  as  clear ;  truths, 
either  of  Scripture  or  of  life,  read  without  it  are  like  truths 
read  by  the  hght  of  funeral  torches  ;  but,  read  by  it,  they 
are  read  by  daylight  and  the  sun.  Thus,  in  descriptive 
preaching,  while  tame,  feeble,  and  learned  critical  correct- 
ness paints  with  painful  weariness — a  something  which  is  all 
prepared,  as  carefully  as  colors  are  ground  down  for  the 
canvas,  and  foolishly  imagines  that  color  and  form  alone 
are  necessary,  imagination,  with  one  or  two  crayon  strokes, 
realizes  the  whole  picture  to  the  eye.  Word-painting  is 
often  the  subject  of  a  sneer,  yet  it  is  the  power  of  the  poet, 
that  truthful  rendering  of  scenery  and  character,  which, 
from  Homer  to  Shakespeare,  and  from  Shakespeare 
to  Wordsworth  or  Tennyson,  brings  the  object  de- 
scribed vividly  before  the  eye,  and  affects  the  sense 
vividly  to  realize.     If  this  is  the  poet's  purpose  it  is  also 

Hurwitz's  charming  and  deliglitful  book  of  "  Hebrew  Tales,'*  an 
invaluable  little  compendium  of  the  ancient  ahd  uninspired  litera- 
ture of  the  Hebrews,  and  also  in  Coleridge's  **  Friend." 
*  Richter.     Titan. 


Preaching  of  Chalmers.  393 

the  preacher's.  Descriptive  sermons,  indeed,  seldom  read 
well ;  audiences  are  usually  coarse  and  sensational ;  the 
colors,  therefore,  are  too  often  glaring  and  sensational,  too. 
Most  of  this  descriptive  work  is  hke  the  stained  glass  in 
cathedrals  and  churches,  very  rich  and  showy  and  perhaps 
glorious,  but  not  perspicuous.  Such  sermons,  like  such 
windows,  need  the  stately  roof  and  embowering  arch ; 
they  do  not  read  well  in  the  study  or  the  household  room. 
The  prismatic  splendors  of  the  great  Chalmers*  or  Henry 
Melville,  will  not  bear  the  quiet  of  the  student's  lonely 
house.  This  order  of  imagination  charms  and  delights,  but 
it  belongs  especially  to  the  speech  of  the  pleasant  concert- 
like sound  ;  it  flows  over  the  soul  a  wilderness  of  dehcious 
melody  "in  which  no  idea  is  received,  usually  no  permanent 
impression  made. 

The  imagination  lets  in  the  Hght,  it  is  a  window  through 
whose  glasses  the  visions  stream  ;  sometimes,  as  httle  pic- 
tures,  and  how  impressive  they  are !  The  essays  of  John 
Foster  and  Coleridge  abound  with  them  ;  as  when  the  last 
speaks  of  terrible  lessons  of  experience  from  history  ; 
truths  learned  too  late  as  :  "  Alas !  like  lights  in  the  stem 
of  a  vessel,  they  illumined  only  the  path  that  had  been 

*  Yet  what  an  effect  must  Chalmers  have  produced  by  his  preach- 
ing !  What  a  description  is  that  in  "  Horae  Subsecivae,"  by  John 
Brown,  of  the  preaching  on  some  simple  village  occasion,  in  a  moor^ 
land  district  in  Tweedale.  "The  Drover,"  a  notorious  and  brutal 
character,  who  had  sat  down  in  the  table  seat  opposite,  was  gazing 
up  in  a  state  of  stupid  excitement ;  he  seemed  restless,  but  never 
kept  his  eye  from  the  speaker.  ''  We  all  had  insensibly  been  drawn 
out  of  our  seats,  and  were  converging  towards  the  wonderful 
speaker."  "  How  beautiful  to  our  eyes  did  the  thunderer  look,  ex- 
hausted, but  sweet  and  pure."  "  We  went  home  quieter  than  when 
we  came  ;  we  thought  of  other  things, — that  voice,  that  face  ; 
those  great,  simple,  living  thoughts ;  those  floods  of  resistless  elo- 
quence ;  that  piercing,  shattering  voice." — Ilorm  Suhsecivce^  Second 
Series,  pp.  90-93. 


334     "^^^^  ^^^  ^^^"^  Abuse  of  Imagination, 

passed  over ; "  or  when  he  speaks  of  neglected  truths  : 
"  Truths,  of  all  others  the  most  awful  and  mysterious,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  of  uniyersal  interest,  are  considered  so 
true  as  to  lose  all  the  power  of  truth,  and  He  bed-ridden  in 
the  dormitory  of  the  soul,  side  by  side  with  the  most  de- 
spised and  exploded  errors."  An  image  is  sometimes  very 
illustrative.  What  is  its  use  unless  it  illustrates  ?  I  re- 
member to  have  heard  the  Bishop  of  Oxford  thus  illustrate 
the  text — "  How  wilt  thou  manifest  thyself  to  us  and  not 
unto  the  world.  Jesus  said.  If  a  man  love  me  he  will  keep 
my  words,  &c.,  and  we  will  come  to  him  and  make  our 
abode  with  him."  "  Just  as  a  dark  lantern  is  of  no  use  to 
any  but  to  him  who  carries  it — dark  everywhere,  behind, 
and  on  either  side — ^but  held  by  its  possessor,  it  casts  before 
him  a  stream  of  informing  light ; "  and  upon  another  text 
the  same  preacher  says,  "Many  characters  seem  to  float 
before  our  eyes  in  Scripture  as  having  been  visited  by  con- 
victions and  opportunities  of  grace,  but  only  like  ships, 
which,  when  night  is  spread  over  the  sea,  emerge  for  a 
moment  from  the  darkness,  as  they  cross  the  pathway  of 
the  moonbeams,  and  then  are  lost  again  in  utter  gloom." 

The  writings  of  Dr.  Guthrie  are  fertile  as  fields  in  these 
suggestive  images — images  which,  on  right  hps,  instantly 
flash  out  meanings.  This  is  Dr.  Guthrie's  characteristic, 
as  thus : 

WHO   HATH   DELIVEKED    US   FROM   THE   POWER   OP   DARKNESS. 

Sailing  once  along  a  coast  where  a  friend  had  suffered  ship- 
wreck, the  scene  which  recalled  his  danger  filled  us  with  no  fear. 
Because,  while  his  ship  on  the  night  she  ran  ashore,  was  cutting 
her  way  through  the  densest  fog,  we  were  ploughing  the  waters 
of  a  silver  sea,  where  noble  headlands,  and  pillared  cliffs,  and 
scattered  islands,  and  surf-beaten  reefs,  stood  bathed  in  the 
brightest  moonshine.  There  was  no  danger,  just  because  there 
was  no  darkness.  The  thick  and  heavy  haze  is,  of  all  hazards, 
that  which  the  wary  seaman  holds  in  greatest  dread. 


On  the  Use  of  Illustrations.  335 

UPON  HIS  HEAD  WERE  MANY  CROWNS. 

Inside  those  iron  gratings  that  protect  the  ancient  regalia  of 
our  kingdom,  vulgar  curiosity  sees  nothing  but  a  display  of 
jewels.  Its  stupid  eyes  are  dazzled  by  the  gems  that  stud  the 
crown  and  sceptre.  The  unreflecting  multitude  fix  their 
thoughts  and  waste  their  admiration  on  these.  They  go  away 
to  talk  of  their  beauty,  perhaps  to  covet  their  possession ;  nor 
do  they  estimate  the  value  of  the  crown,  but  by  the  price 
which  its  pearls,  and  rubies,  and  diamonds,  might  fetch  in  the 
market. 

The  eye  of  a  patriot,  gazing  thoughtfully  in  on  these  relics  of 
former  days,  is  all  but  blind  to  what  attracts  the  gaping  group. 
The  admiration  is  reserved  for  other  and  nobler  objects.  He 
looks  with  deep  and  meditative  interest  on  that  rim  of  gold,  not 
for  its  intrinsic  value,  but  because  it  once  encircled  the  brow  of 
Scotland's  greatest  king,  the  hero  of  her  independence — Robert 
Bruce.  Regarded  in  some  such  light,  estimated  by  the  suffer- 
ings endured  for  it,  how  great  the  value  of  that  crown  which 
Jesus  wears  !  What  a  kingdom  that  which  cost  God  His  Son, 
and  cost  that  Son  his  life  ! 

But  these  things  are  not  to  be  stuck  into  sermons  mere- 
triciously, like  wax  or  paper  flowers.* 

"  Give  us  lessons,  not  laces,"  says  old  Thomas  Adams. 
"  A  garment,"  he  continues,  "  to  have  here  and  there  a 
fringe,  or  button,  or  jewel  is  comely  ;  to  be  nothing  but 
buttons  is  ridiculous.  We  will  make  three  borders  of  gold 
with  studs  of  silver.  Divinity  is  that  border  of  gold  ;  hu- 
man learning  the  studs  of  silver."  Once  again  I  say  the 
question  should  be  asked,,  whether  fable,  allegory,  analogy 
or  illustration  is  used.  Does  that  help  ?     The  use  of  the 

*  There  are  indeed  collections  of  them,  such  as  Spencer's  already 
referred  to,  and  the  similar  bulky  but  less  valuable  predecessor.  A 
Treasury  or  Storehouse  of  Similes,  both  Pleasant^  DeligJitful  and 
Profitable  for  all  Estates  of  Men  in  General.  Newly  Collected  into 
Heads  and  Commonplaces.  By  Robert  Cawdray.  Printed  in  Old 
Change,  Sign  of  Eagle  and  Child,  IGOO. 


336     The  Use  and  Ahum  of  Imagination, 

imagination  in  the  speaker  embodies  ;  in  the  hearer  it  un- 
bosoms ;  hke  Byron  in  the  tempest  on  Lake  Leman,  who 
felt  that  the  vehement  energy  of  the  storm  translated  and 
expounded  to  him  his  own  nature,  was  the  adequate — 
scarcely,  but  still  representatively,  adequate — illustration 
of  the  slumbering  passions  in  his  soul ;  so  that,  as  he 
looked  upon  it,  he  was  able  to  say,  "  There,  there  ,  it  is — 
that  is  what  I  have  known,  what  I  have  felt."    As  he  says  : 

Sky,  mountain,  river,  winds  like  lightnings  !  Ye 
With  night,  and  clouds,  and  thunders,  and  a  soul 
To  make  these  felt,  and  feeling  well  may  be 
Things  that  have  made  me  watchful ;  the  far  roll 
Of  your  departing  voices  is  the  knoll 
Of  what  in  me  is  sleepless, — ^if  I  rest. 

And  again : 

Could  I  embody  and  embosom  now 

That  which  is  most  within  me,  could  I  wreck 

My  thoughts  upon  expressions,  and  thus  throw 

Soul,  heart,  mind,  passions,  feelings,  strong  or  weak, 

All  that  I  would  have  sought,  and  all  I  seek. 

Bear,  know,  feel,  and  yet  breathe,  into  one  word — 

And  that  one  word  were  lightning,  I  would  speak. 

But  as  it  is  I  live  and  die  unheard. 

With  a  most  voiceless  thought,  sheathing  it  as  a  sword. 

So  every  noble  image  enables  the  hearer  to  exclaim,  "  There, 
there,  it  is  ;  that  is  my  embodied  feeliag,  now  I  see  it ; 
now  I  understand  it,  as  far  as  I  can  be  made  to  understand  ; 
it  is  there,  that  expresses  it."  This  is  the  real  work  of  the 
imagination  ;  hence  it  is  such  an  art  and  such  an  influence 
and  power.  How  sublime  when  this  is  brought  to  bear  on 
the  embodying  the  great  truths — the  noble  characteristics 
of  the  Christian  hfe  ;  when  meanings  stand  revealed  by 
the  mingled  lights  of  divine  teaching  and  human  experi- 
ence, in  the  elevated  and  thoughtful  soul ;  floating  feelings 


Emotion  Translated  hy  Scenery.         337 

transformed  into  convictions,  and  definite  and  determinate 
perceptions,  powers  in  the  character  and  the  life,  as  well  as 
tremendous  attestations  of  the  speaker's  genius.  Many 
readers  will  think  that  Frederick  Kobinson  did  not  express 
the  whole  truth  of  the  Christian  life  and  faith  in  the  follow- 
ing passages  ;  but  in  all  his  own  subtlety  of  eloquence  and 
insight,  he  expresses  that  faculty  of  the  imagination  to 
which  I  have  alluded  : 


Or,  again,  we  must  all  have  felt,  when  certain  effects  in  nature, 
combinations  of  form  and  color,  have  been  presented  to  us,  our 
own  idea  speaking  in  intelligent  and  yet  celestial  language  ; 
when,  for  instance,  the  long  bars  of  purple,  "  edged  with  in- 
tolerable radiance,"  seemed  to  float  in  a  sea  of  pale,  pure  green, 
when  the  whole  sky  seemed  to  reel  with  thunder,  when  the 
night-wind  moaned.  It  is  wonderful  how  Ihe  most  common- 
place men  and  women,  beings  who,  as  you  would  have  thought, 
had  no  conception  that  rose  beyond  a  commercial  speculation,  or 
a  fashionable  entertainment,  are  elevated  by  such  scenes ;  how 
the  slumbering  grandeur  of  their  nature  wakes  and  acknowl- 
edges kindred  with  the  sky  and  storm.  "  I  cannot  speak,"  they 
would  say,  "  the  feelings  which  are  in  me ;  I  have  had  emotions, 
aspirations,  thoughts ;  I  cannot  put  them  into  words.  Look 
there !  listen  now  to  the  storm  !  That  is  what  I  meant,  only  I 
never  could  say  it  out  till  now."  Thus  do  art  and  nature  speak 
for  us,  and  thus  do  we  adopt  them  as  our  own.  This  is  the  way 
in  which  His  righteousness  becomes  righteousness  for  us.  This 
is  the  way  in  which  the  heart  presents  to  God  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ ;  gazing  on  that  perfect  Life  we,  as  it  were,  say,  "  There, 
that  is  my  religion — that  is  my  righteousness — what  I  want  to 
be,  which  I  am  not — that  is  my  offering,  my  life  as  I  would 
wish  to  give  it,  freely  and  not  checked,  entire  and  perfect."  So 
the  old  prophets,  their  hearts  big  with  unutterable  thoughts, 
searched  "  what  or  what  manner  of  time  the  spirit  of  Christ 
which  was  in  them  did  signify,  when  it  testified  beforehand  of 
the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  of  the  glory  which  should  follow;" 
and  so  with  us,  until  it  passes  into  prayer ;  "  My  Saviour,  fill  up 
15 


238     Tlie  Use  and  A  huse  of  Imagination. 

the  blurred  and  blotted  sketch  which  my  clumsy  hand  has 
drawn  of  a  divine  life,  with  the  fulness  of  thy  perfect  picture. 
I  feel  the  beauty  which  I  cannot  realize  :r— robe  me  in  thine  un- 
utterable purity : 

"  Rock  of  ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  mysQlf  in  thee." 


Pulpit  Monographs. 
V. — Christmas  Evans. 


EOPLE  in  England  know  little  of  Welsh  preach- 
ing. Nor  is  it  possible  they  should  know 
much  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  in  most  of  our 
congregations  a  larger  acquaintance  with  it  and 
the  manner  of  it  would  not  have  the  effect  of  making  it 
more  favorably  regarded.  Preaching  is  in  Wales  the  great 
national  characteristic — the  Derby  Day  is  not  more  truly  a 
characteristic  of  England  than  the  great  gatherings  and 
meetings  of  the  Associations  all  grouped  around  some 
popular  favorites.  The  dwellers  among  those  mountains 
and  upon  those  hiU  sides  have  no  concerts,  no  theatres,  no 
means  of  stimulating  or  satisfying  their  curiosity.  For  we, 
who  care  httle  for  preaching,  to  whom  the  whole  sermon 
system  is  perhaps  becoming  more  tedious,  we  can  form  but 
little  idea,  and  have  but  httle  sympathy  with  that  form  of 
rehgious  society  where  the  pulpit  is  the  orchestra,  and  the 
stage,  and  the  platform,  and  where  the  charms  of  music 
and  painting  and  acting  are  all  looked  for  and  found  in  the 
preacher.  We  very  likely  should  be  disposed  even  to  look 
with  complacent  pity  upon  such  a  state  of  society ;  it  has 
not  yet  expired  where  the  Bulwers,  and  Dickens,  and  Thack- 

(339) 


340     Pulpit  MonograpTis :  Christmas  Evans. 

erays,  and  Scotts  are  altogether  unknown  :  there  the  pecu- 
Har  forms  of  their  genius — certainly  without  their  peculiar 
education — display  themselves  in  the  pulpit.  If  you  like  to 
suppose,  therefore,  a  large  amount  of  ignorance,  well,  upon 
such  a  subject  certainly  it  is  possible  to  enter  easily  upon 
the  illimitable,  yet  it  is  such  an  ignorance  as  that  which  de- 
veloped itself  in  Job  and  in  his  companions  and  in  his  age 
— an  ignorance  like  that  which  we  may  conceive  in  ^schy- 
lus.  In  fact, 'in  Wales  the  gates  of  every  man's  being  have 
been  opened.  It  is  possible  to  know  much  of  the  grammar, 
and  the  history,  and  the  lexicography  of  things,  and  yet  to 
be  utterly  ignorant,  so  utterly  ignorant  of  thuigs  as  never 
to  have  felt  the  sentiment  of  strangeness  or  of  terror ;  and 
without  having  ever  been  informed  about  the  names  of 
things,  it  is  possible  to  have  been  brought  into  the  presence 
and  the  power  of  things  themselves.  Thus  the  ignorance 
of  one  man  may  be  higher  than  the  intelligence  of  another. 
There  may  be  a  large  memory  and  a  very  narrow  conscious- 
ness. On  the  contrary,  there  may  be  a  large  consciousness, 
while  the  forms  it  embraces  may  be  uncertain  and  unde- 
fined in  the  misty  twilight  of  the  soul.  This  is  much  the 
state  of  many  minds  in  Wales.  It  is  the  state  of  feeling 
and  of  poetry,  of  subtle  questionings,  and  high  religious 
musings  and  raptures.  This  state  has  been  aided  by  the 
secludedness  of  the  country,  and  the  exclusiveness  of  the 
language,  not  less  than  by  the  rugged  force  and  masculine 
majesty  and  strength  of  the  language,  a  language  full  of 
angles  and  sharp  goads,  admirably  fitted  for  the  masters  of 
assemblies,  admirably  fitted  to  move  too,  Hke  a  wind  over 
the  soul,  rousing  and  soothing,  stirring  into  storm  and  lull- 
ing into  rest.  Something  in  it  makes  an  orator  almost  ludi- 
crous when  he  attempts  to  convey  himself  in  another  lan- 
guage, but  very  powerful  and  impressive  in  that.  It  is  a 
speaking  and  living  language,  a  language  without  any  shal- 
lows, a  language  which  seems  to  compel  the  necessity  of 


His  Very  Humble  Origin,  ^41 

thought  or  feeling  before  using  it.  Our  language  is  fast 
becoming  serviceable  for  all  that  large  part  of  the  human 
family  who  speak  without  thinking.  To  this  state  the  Welsh 
can  never  come.  That  unaccommodating  tongue  only  moves 
with  a  soul  behind  it. 

Christmas  Evans  was  the  child  of  very  poor  parents — 
Samuel  and  Joanna  Evans.  At  the  age  of  seventeen,  Christ- 
mas could  not  read  a  w^ord.  He  was  bom  at  Esgaiswen,  in 
the  parish  of  Llandysul,  Cardiganshire,  on  Christmas-day, 
1766,  says  his  friend  and  biographer,  Ehys  Stephen — 1776, 
says  his  later  biographer,  Mr.  Cross.  Probably  Mr.  Ste- 
phen is  correct.  His  father  was  a  shoemaker,  but  he  died 
when  the  lad  was  only  nine  years  of  age,  and  his  wife  and 
children  became  even,  in  some  measure,  dependent  on  the 
parish  for  support.  He  was  taken  by  an  uncle,  a  Mr.  James 
Lewis,  to  his  farm,  and  for  six  years  he  was  abandoned  to 
utter  neglect.  His  years  were  passed  in  complete  poverty, 
in  most  servile  employments  ;  he  had  neither  friend  nor 
home.  An  imagination,  however,  so  vivid  and  vigorous, 
must  have  frequently  been  awakened  amidst  the  sublime 
scenery  of  the  glorious  hills  and  valleys  by  which  he  was 
surrounded.  The  influences  which  encompassed  him  were 
entirely  depraving  ;  yet,  in  his  seventeenth  year,  he  became 
the  subject  of  deep  rehgious  impressions,  although  they 
were  kindled  in  a  church  whose  pastor  was  strongly  influ- 
enced by  Arian  views,  as  were  many  ministers  in  Wales  in 
that  day — Mr.  Daniel  Davies.  Mr.  Stephen  has,  in  a  few 
lines,  given  a  most  lovable  portrait  of  him.*  H«  was  the 
Patriarch  and  Pastor  of  Castell  Hywel.     He  says  ;: — 

Mr.  D.  Davies  was  the  very  soul  of  kindness  atld  fine  feeling ; 
and  wherever  you  meet  one  of  his  old  i)upils,  be  he  crergyman  or 
dissenting  minister,  there  is  a  kind  and  admiring  word  for  the 
Patriarch  of  Castell  Hywel.  Nothing  could  be  more  unsophisti- 
cated tiian  his  mode  of  living  amongst  his  native  mountains ; 

*  Memoirs  of  Christmas  Evans.    By  David  Rhys  Stephen. 


342     Pulpit  MoiiograpTis :  Christmas  JEkmns. 

and  while,  in  mind,  he  lived  with  the  old  Greeks  and  the  mighty 
Romans,  revelling  in  the  treasury  of  ancient  lore,  he  ate,  and 
drank,  and  lodged,  as  did  the  small  farmer  of  his  district.  With 
few  wants,  and  less  discontent — teaching  all  that  were  sent  to 
his  school ;  paid  most  moderately,  indeed,  by  the  richest  of  his 
neighbours,  not  at  all  by  the  poorer  among  them ;  breaking  in 
upon  the  "  noiseless  tenour  of  his  way  "  only  by  the  sermons  on 
the  Lord's-day,  and  occasionally  at  some  house  on  week-day 
evening,  when,  especially  if  he  referred  to  the  Prodigal  Son, 
which  he  w^as  much  addicted  to,  he  would  weep  profusely,  af- 
fected by  his  own  teaching  ;  at  once  the  cause  of  his  own  felic- 
ity, and  the  source  of  whatever  power  he  exerted  upon  others. 

Mr.  Davies,  ovei-taken  by  a  heavy  shower,  called  at  a  farm- 
house, and  begged  a  sheaf  of  straw,  which,  opening  it  in  the 
middle,  he  put  on  his  head  as  a  temporary  umbrella.  A  poor 
woman  who  met  him  on  the  road,  said,  "Mr.  Davies,  lachf  you 
have  very  poor  shelter."  "  Oh  !"  replied  the  good  man,  "  a  roof 
of  straw  well  becomes  a  wall  of  clay." 

There  came  a  great  awakening  at  Castell  Hywel,  a  great 
desire  for  religious  knowledge.  In  those  days  scarce  one 
person  in  ten  could  read  at  aU,  even  in  the  language  of  the 
country  ;  so  says  Christmas  Evans.  "  We " — that  is  the 
young  converts — "  bought  Bibles  and  candles,  and  were  ac- 
customed to  meet  together  in  a  bam  in  the  evening,  at 
Penypralltfaus,  and  thus  in  about  a  month  I  was  able  to 
read  the  Bible  in  my  mother  tongue.  I  was  vastly  de- 
lighted with  so  much  learning.  This,  however,  did  not 
satisfy  me,  but  I  borrowed  books  and  learnt  a  little  Eng- 
lish. Mr.  Davies,  my  pastor,  understood  that  I  thirsted 
for  knowledge,  and  took  me  to  his  school,  where  I  stayed 
for  six  months.  Here  I  went  through  the  Latin  grammar, 
but  so  low  were  my  circumstances  that  I  could  stay  there 
no  longer."  He  soon  became  the  subject  of  persecution 
among  his  companions,  and  it  was  about  this  time  that  he 
lost  his  eye.  Six  young  men  feU  upon  him  unawares,  and 
beat  hun  very  unmercifully  ;  one  of  them,  using  a  stick, 


First  JEfforU  in  the  Ministry,  343 

struck  him  above  the  eye,  which  occasioned  the  loss  of  its 
sight.  A  very  great  mistake  went  abroad  that  Christmas 
Evans,  before  his  conversion,  was  a  great  boxer.  So  far 
otherwise,  he  says  he  "never  fought  a  battle  in  his  life." 
The  night  after  this  sad  disaster,  he  dreamt  that  the  day  of 
judgment  was  come.  He  says,  "  I  saw  Jesus  in  the  clouds, 
and  all  the  world  on  fire.  I  was  in  great  fear,  yet  crying 
earnestly,  and  with  some  confidence,  for  His  peace.  He 
answered  and  said,  *  Thou  thoughtest  to  be  a  preacher,  but 
but  what  wilt  thou  do  now  ?  The  world  is  on  ^q  and  it  is 
too  late.'  On  this  I  awoke."  This  dream  produced  a  deep 
impression  on  his  mind  :  it  recovered  him,  too,  from  some 
spiritual  declension.  He  was  called  upon  often  to  the  exer- 
cises of  prayer  and  exhortation,  and  he  testifies  that  to  this 
he  felt  "  a  strong  inclination,  though,"  he  says,  "  I  knew 
myseK  a  mass  of  spiritual  ignorance."  His  memory  was 
very  tenacious  ;  he  translated,  among  his  first  performances, 
a  sermon  of  Bishop  Beveridge,  and  preached  it.  He  also 
committed  to  memory  one  of  Mr.  Rowland's  sermons,  and 
preached  it  in  the  very  neighborhood  of  the  church  to 
which  he  belonged.  A  gentleman  heard  him,  and  natur- 
ally enough  expressed  amazement  at  such  a  sermon  from 
an  unlettered  boy.  The  mystery  was  solved  next  day — he 
found  the  sermon  in  a  book.  " However,"  said  he,  "I  have 
not  done  thinkmg  there  is  something  great  in  the  son  of 
Samuel,  the  shoemaker,  for  his  prayer  was  as  good  as  the 
sermon."  His  opinion  of  the  young  preacher  would  have 
suffered  some  farther  abatement  if  he  had  known,  what  was 
the  fact,  that  the  prayer  itseK  was  memorized.  This  seems 
to  have  taken  place  before  he  lost  his  eye,  before  the  dream  ; 
and  for  the  youth,  who  could  do  such  things,  we  are  not 
surprised  that  there  was  a  sad  backshding  and  repentance 
before  the  period  of  his  real  promise  and  usefulness.  Yet  we 
learn  that  his  Christian  experiences  were  of  a  painful  na- 
ture.    He  who  was  wont,  before  the  period  of  true  relig- 


344    P'K^lpit  Monogr^a^ylis :  OJiristmas  M^aiis. 

ious  feeling  and  honest  and  individual  application,  to  at- 
tempt to  shine  in  the  robes  of  the  departed  masters,  now 
that  he  was  thrown  upon  himseK  felt  all  the  depression  and 
debasement  of  a  humble  heai-t,  and  sometimes  of  a  disap- 
pointed ministry.  He  was  wont,  w^hen  he  preached,  to 
enter  the  pulpit  with  dread  ;  he  conceived  the  very  sight  of 
him  was  enough  to  becloud  the  hearts  of  his  hearers,  and 
intercept  the  light  of  heaven  in  its  efforts  to  shine  upon 
theu'  souls.  He  could  not  ascertain  that  he  had  been  the 
means  of  salvation  to  a  single  hearer  during  five  years  of 
his  ministry,  and  he  kept  the  state  of  his  soul  in  darkness 
and  in  reserve  ;  he  drank  the  wormwood  of  thought  and  of 
bitter  feeling  alone.  We  Hke  to  read  these  passages  of  soul 
history  ;  to  him  they  were  dark  moments,  but  the  Hght 
came  by-and-by,  and  we  shall  see  that  his  wonderful  power 
over  other  men  was  the  result  of  his  own  deep  and  solemn 
acquaintance  with  the  most  painful  and  harrassing  ques- 
tions of  the  human  heart.  His  faith  was  no  "  cunningly 
devised  fable." 

He  married  in  1790 — the  year  in  which  he  was  ordained 
at  Lleyn,  m  Caernarvonshke — Catharine  Jones.  She 
greatly  aided  him  in  his  ministerial  work,  by  her  spirit  and 
her  character.  She  did  not  bring  him  property  ;  but  she 
brought  what  was  of  far  more  importance  than  property ; 
she  was  a  member  of  his  church.  She  had  a  strong  mind, 
and  she  had,  it  seems,  great  aptitude  for  theological  studies. 
She  must  have  been,  when  married,  very  young  ;  for  thirty- 
three  years  she  walked  with  her  husband  a  companion  and 
helpmeet,  and  as  a  manager  she  seems  to  have  been  even  a 
miracle  of  a  woman.  Her  husband's  income,  for  the  greater 
part  of  their  married  hfe,  never  exceeded  thirty  pounds ; 
yet  she  gave  away  food  to  poor  children  and  needy  folks, 
and  procured  and  made  garments  for  the  poor  members  of 
the  church,  and  money  and  bread  for  Irish  laborers  who 
passed  her  door  on  their  way  to  and  from  the  harvests. 


Home  Life — Poverty — Trials.  345 

Her  house  was  always  open  to  itinerant  ministers,  and  she 
readily  administered  to  them  with  her  own  hands  ;  and  al- 
though her  health  was  never  robust  she  had  so  much  cour- 
age that  she  was  able  to  accompany  her  husband  on  ^^q  of 
his  journeys  through  the  greatest  portion  of  Wales,  some- 
times in  the  depth  of  the  winter,  often  through  storms  of 
rain,  and  snow,  and  hail,  over  dangerous  ferries,  and 
through  wild  and  desolate  places.  She  loved  the  Saviour, 
and  she  made  all  the  interests  of  His  Church  hers.  They 
travelled  in  true  apostohc  style.  Thus  we  read,  when 
Christmas  Evans  was  forty-six  years  of  age,  he  removed 
from  Lleyn  to  the  Isle  of  Anglesea.  Lleyn  had  been  his 
first  church  and  charge,  there  he  had  been  ordained,  there 
he  met  and  married  his  wife  ;  now  upon  his  birth-day 
(Christmas-day)  they  went  out  to  their  new  country,  almost, 
it  might  be  said,  not  knowing  whither  they  went.  "It 
was,"  he  says,  "a  rough  day  of  frost  and  snow."  Of  this 
world's  goods  they  had  none.  He  commenced  thus  his 
journey  on  horseback,  with  his  wife  behind  him,  and  arrived 
in  the  evening  of  the  same  day  at  Llangewin.  Whatever 
was  the  motive  for  his  departure,  it  was  not  money ;  his 
salary  in  Anglesea  was  only  £X1  pounds  per  annum,  and 
for  twenty  years  he  asked  no  more.  He  who  said  to  Abra- 
ham "  Fear  not :  I  am  thy  shield  and  exceeding  great  re- 
ward," called  Christmas  Evans  forth  ;  and  the  reason  of 
the  call  was  soon  perceived  in  the  large  additions  made  to 
Abraham's  seed,  and  the  divine  influence  felt  by  innumera- 
ble souls.  In  all  this  his  wife  was  no  obstruction.  If  it  be 
true  that  a  man  must  ask  his  wife's  leave  to  be  rich,  he  must 
also  ask  her  to  permit  him  to  be  useful ;  she  is  the  minis- 
ter's minister,  and  his  power  is  greatly  owing  to  her.  What 
can  we,  or  men  such  as  we  are,  know  of  such  men,  of  their 
Hves,  or  of  their  motives  ?  We  call  them  poor,  we  should 
look  upon  them  almost  with  contempt ;  their  world  was 
different  to  ours,  their  life  a  hidden  life.  Had  they  not 
15* 


346     Pulpit  Moiiogra/phs :   Christmas  Evans, 

pleasures  ?  Had  not  our  preacher  pleasures  ?  The  noise 
of  the  great  world  scarcely  ever  broke  on  his  ear.  Every- 
way the  furniture  of  life  was  simple  ;  luxuries  of  the  most 
frivolous  description  have  become  necessities  to  us  ;  but  as 
we  read  the  life  of  this  man  and  his  companions  in  the 
ministry,  all  look  very  different.  The  things  of  eternity, 
and  the  solemn  thoughts  of  time  awakening  to  it,  seem 
nearer  to  such  men  than  to  us.  Mr.  Stephen,  in  his  Life, 
has  given  the  passing  sketch  and  memorial  of  several  of 
these  men,  of  whom  our  world  indeed  is  not  worthy. 

Their  virtues  walked  their  narrow  round, 

Nor  made  a  pause  nor  left  a  void  ; 
And  sure  the  eternal  Master  found 

Their  single  talent  well  employed. 

It  was  in  the  second  year  of  his  ministry  at  Lleyn  that  a. 
change  came  over  the  ministry  of  the  man.  He  was  in 
feeble  health,  and  he  set  off  to  South  Wales  to  visit  his 
friends.  He  was  unable  to  procure  a  horse  for  the  journey, 
and  the  small  societies  to  which  he  preached  were  too  poor 
to  provide  him  one.  So  he  set  forth  on  foot,  preaching  in 
every  town  and  village  through  which  he  passed.  He  gives 
the  account  of  many  battles  in  spirit  among  the  mountains. 
He  says,  "  The  roads  were  lonely,  and  I  was  wholly  alone. 
I  suffered  no  interruptions  in  my  wrestlings  with  God." 
He  says  this,  indeed,  of  a  later  period  of  his  spiritual  diffi- 
culties, but  he  knew  these  moments  constantly,  and  a 
change  came  over  his  ministrations.     He  says  : 

I  now  felt  a  power  in  the  word,  like  a  hammer  breaking  the 
rock,  and  not  like  a  rush.  I  had  a  very  powerful  time  at  Kil- 
vowyr,  and  also  pleasant  meetings  in  the  neighborhood  of  Car- 
digan. The  work  of  conversion  was  progressing  so  rapidly  and 
with  so  much  energy  in  those  parts,  that  the  ordinance  of  bap- 
tism was  administered  every  month  for  a  year  or  more,  at  Kil- 
vowyr,  Cardigan,  Blacnywaun,  Blaeuffos  and  Ebenezer,  to  from 


Weary  of  a  Cold  Heart,  347 

ten  to  twenty  persons  each  month.  The  chapels  and  adjoining 
burying-grounds  were  crowded  with  hearers  of  a  week-day, 
even  in  the  middle  of  harvest.  I  frequently  preached  in  the 
open  air  in  the  evenings,  and  the  rejoicings  singing,  and  prais- 
ing would  continue  until  broad  light  the  next  morning.  The 
hearers  appeared  melted  down  in  tenderness  at  the  diflferent 
meetings,  so  that  they  wept  streams  of  tears,  and  cried  out,  in 
such  a  manner  that  one  might  suppose  the  whole  congregation, 
male  and  female,  was  thoroughly  dissolved  by  the  Gospel.  "  The 
word  of  God  "  was  now  become  as  "  a  sharp  two-edged  sword, 
dividing  asunder  the  joints  and  marrow,"  and  revealing  unto 
the  people  the  secret  corruptions  of  their  hearts.  Preaching  was 
now  unto  me  a  pleasure,  and  the  success  of  the  ministry  in  all 
places  was  very  great.  The  same  people  attended  fifteen  or 
twenty  diflferent  meetings,  many  miles  apart  in  the  counties  of 
Cardigan,  Pembroke,  Caermarthen,  Glamorgan,  Monmouth  and 
Brecknock.  This  revival,  especially  in  the  vicinity  of  Cardi- 
gan, and  in  Pembrokeshire,  subdued  the  whole  country,  and  in- 
duced people  everywhere  to  think  wel!  of  religion.  The  same 
heavenly  gale  followed  down  to  Fishguard,  Llangloflfan,  Little 
New-Castle,  and  Rhydwylim,  where  Mr.  Gabriel  Rees  was  then  a 
zealous  and  a  powerful  preacher.  There  was  such  a  tender  spirit 
resting  on  the  hearers  at  this  season,  from  Tabor  to  Middlemill, 
that  one  would  imagine,  by  their  weeping  and  trembling  in  their 
places  of  worship,  and  all  this  mingled  with  so  much  heavenly 
cheerfulness,  that  they  would  wish  to  abide  for  ever  in  this  state 
of  mind. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  notice  how  real  and  deep  was  the 
spiritual  hfe  of  Christmas  Evans.     He  says  : 

I  was  weary  of  a  cold  heart  towards  Christ,  and  His  sacrifice, 
and  the  work  of  His  Spirit — of  a  cold  heart  in  the  pulpit,  in 
secret  prayer,  and  in  study.  For  fifteen  years  previously  I  had 
felt  my  heart  burning  within,  as  if  going  to  Emmaus  with  Jesus. 
On  a  day  ever  to  be  remembered  by  me,  as  I  was  going  from 
Dolgelly  to  Machynlleth,  and  climbing  up  towards  Cadair  Idris 
I  considered  it  to  be  incumbent  upon  me  to  pray,  however  hard 
I  felt  my  heart,  and  however  worldly  the  frame  of  my  spirit  was. 


348     Pulpit  Monographs :  Christmas  JEvans. 

Having  begun  in  the  name  of  Jesus,  I  soon  felt  as  it  were  the 
fetters  loosening,  and  the  old  hardness  of  heart  softening,  and, 
as  I  thought,  mountains  of  frost  and  snow  dissolving  and  melt- 
ing within  me.  This  engendered  confidence  in  my  soul  in  the 
promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  I  felt  my  whole  mind  relieved  from 
some  great  bondage:  tears  flowed  copiously,  and  I  was  con- 
strained to  cry  out  for  the  gracious  visits  of  God,  by  restoring 
to  my  soul  the  joy  of  His  salvation ;  and  that  He  would  visit  the 
churches  in  Anglesea  that  were  under  my  care.  I  embraced  in 
my  supplications  all  the  churches  of  the  saints,  and  nearly  all 
the  ministers  in  the  principality  by  their  names.  This  struggle 
lasted  for  three  hours  :  it  rose  again  and  again,  like  one  wave 
after  another,  or  a  high  flowing  tide,  driven  by  a  strong  wind, 
until  my  nature  became  faint  by  weeping  and  crying.  Thus  I 
resigned  myself  to  Christ,  body  and  soul,  gifts  and  labors — all 
my  life — every  day  and  every  hour  that  remained  for  me ;  and 
all  my  cares  I  committed  to  Christ.  The  road  was  mountainous 
and  lonely,  and  I  was  wholly  alone,  and  sufi'ered  no  interruptions 
in  my  wrestlings  with  God. 

From  this  time,  I  was  made  to  expect  the  goodness  of  God  to 
churches  and  to  myself.  Thus  the  Lord  delivered  me  and  the 
people  of  Anglesea  from  being  carried  away  by  the  flood  of 
Sandemanianism.  In  the  first  religious  meeting  after  this  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  been  removed  from  the  cold  and  sterile  regions  of 
spiritual  frost,  into  the  verdant  fields  of  the  divine  promises. 
The  former  strivings  with  God  in  prayer,  and  the  longing 
anxiety  for  the  conversion  of  sinners,  which  I  had  experienced 
at  Lleyn,  were  now  restored.  I  had  a  hold  of  the  promises  of 
God.  The  result  was,  when  I  returned  home,  the  first  thing 
that  arrested  my  attention  was,  that  the  Spirit  was  working 
also  in  the  brethren  in  Anglesea,  inducing  in  them  a  spirit  of 
prayer,  especially  in  two  of  the  deacons,  who  were  particularly 
importunate  that  God  would  visit  us  in  mercy,  and  render  the 
Word  of  His  grace  efiectual  amongst  us  for  the  conversion  of 
sinners. 

Readers  will  be  interested  in  reading  the  solemn  cove- 
nants ^entered  into  with  God  from  time  to  time.  Our 
preacher  represented  a  time  and  a  state  of  things  when 


A  Singular  and  Solemn  Covenant  with  God,   349 

such  affairs  of  the  heart  took  place.  We  will  also  beg  them 
to  notice  those  passages  we  have  printed  in  itahcs,  as  show- 
ing the  especial  care  and  anxiety  of  his  heart  : 

"  I.  I  give  my  soul  and  body  unto  thee,  Jesus,  the  true  God, 
and  everlasting  life — deliver  me  from  sin,  and  from  eternal  death, 
and  bring  me  into  life  everlasting.     Amen. — C.  E. 

"II.  I  call  the  day,  the  sun,  the  earth,  the  trees,  the  stones,  the 
bed,  the  table,  and  the  books,  to  witness  that  I  come  unto  thee, 
Redeemer  of  sinners,  that  I  may  obtain  rest  for  my  soul  from  the 
thunders  of  guilt  and  the  dread  of  eternity.     Amen. — C.  E. 

•"III.  I  do,  through  confidence  in  thy  power,  earnestly  entreat 
thee  to  take  the  work  into  thine  own  hand,  and  give  me  a  cir- 
cumcised heart,  that  I  may  love  thee,  and  create  in  me  a  right 
spirit,  that  I  may  seek  thy  glory.  Grant  me  that  principle  which 
thou  wilt  own  in  the  day  of  judgment,  that  I  may  not  then  as- 
sume palefacedness,  and  find  myself  a  hypocrite.  Grant  me  this, 
for  the  sake  of  thy  most  precious  blood.     Amen. — C.  E. 

"IV.  I  entreat  thee,  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  in  power,  grant 
me,  for  the  sake  of  thy  agonizing  death,  a  covenant  interest  in 
thy  blood,  which  cleanseth ;  in  thy  righteousness,  which  justi- 
fieth ;  and  in  thy  redemption,  which  delivereth.  I  entreat  an 
interest  in  thy  blood,  for  thy  Uood's  sake,  and  a  part  in  thee,  for 
thy  name's  sake,  which  thou  hast  given  among  men.  Amen. — 
C.  E. 

"  V.  O  Jesus  Christy  Son  of  the  living  God,  take,  for  the  sake 
of  thy  cruel  death,  my  time,  and  strength,  and  the  gifts  and  tal- 
ents I  possess ;  which,  with  a  full  purpose  of  heart,  I  consecrate 
to  thy  glory  in  the  building  upof  thy  Church  in  the  world,  for 
thou  art  worthy  of  the  hearts  and  talents  of  all  men.  Amen. — 
C.  E. 

"  VI.  I  desire  thee,  my  great  High  Priest,  to  confirm,  by  thy 
power,  from  thy  High  Court,  my  usefulness  as  a  preacher ^  and 
my  piety  as  a  Christian^  as  tico  gardens  nigh  to  each  other  ;  that 
sin  may  not  have  place  in  my  heart,  to  becloud  my  confidence  in 
thy  righteousness,  and  that  I  may  not  be  left  to  any  foolish  act 
that  may  occasion  my  gifts  to  wither,  and  be  rendered  useless 
before  my  life  ends.  Keep  thy  gracious  eye  upon  me,  and  watch 
over  me,  O  my  Lord  and  my  God,  for  ever !     Amen. — C.  E. 


350     Pulpit  Monographs :  Ohristinas  Evans. 

"  VII.  I  give  myself  in  a  particular  manner  to  tliee,  O  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Saviour,  to  be  preserved  from  the  falls  into  which 
many  stumble,  that  thy  name  (in  thy  cause)  may  not  be  blas- 
phemed or  wounded,  that  my  peace  may  not  be  injured,  that  thy 
people  may  not  be  grieved,  and  that  thine  enemies  may  not  be 
hardened.     Amen. — C.  E. 

"  VIII.  I  come  unto  thee,  beseeching  thee  to  be  in  covenant 
with  me  in  my  ministry.  As  thou  didst  prosper  Bunyan,  Vava- 
sor Powell,  How^ell  Harris,  Rowlands,  and  Whitefield,  O  do  thou 
prosper  me.  Whatsoever  things  are  opposed  to  my  prosperity, 
remove  them  out  of  the  way.  Work  in  me  everything  approved 
of  God,  for  the  attainment  of  this.  Give  me  a  heart  "  sick  Of 
love"  to  thyself,  and  to  the  souls  of  men.  Grant  that  I  may  ex- 
perience the  power  of  thy  Word  before  I  deliver  it,  as  Moses  felt 
the  power  of  his  own  rod,  before  he  saw  it  on  the  land  and  wa- 
ters of  Egypt.  Grant  this,  for  the  sake  of  thine  infinitely  pre- 
cious blood,  O  Jesus,  my  hope,  and  my  all  in  all !     Amen. — C.  E. 

"IX.  Search  me  now,  and  lead  me  in  plain  paths  of  judgment. 
Let  me  discover  in  this  life  what  I  am  before  thee,  that  I  may 
not  find  myself  of  another  character,  when  I  am  shown  in  the 
light  of  the  immortal  world,  and  open  ray  eyes  in  all  the  bright- 
ness of  eternity.  Wash  me  in  thy  redeeming  blood.  Amen. — 
C.  E. 

"Grant  me  strength  to  depend  upon  thee  for  food  and  rai- 
ment, and  to  make  known  my  requests.  0  let  thy  care  he  over 
me  as  a  covenant-privilege  hetwixt  thee  and  myself^  and  not  like  a 
general  care  to  feed  the  ravens  that  perish^  and  clothe  the  lily  that 
is  cast  into  the  oven  ;  hut  let  thy  care  he  over  me  as  one  of  thy  f  am' 
ily^  as  one  of  thine  unworthy  hrethren.    Amen. — C.  E, 

"  XI.  Grant,  O  Jesus  !  and  take  upon  thyself  the  preparing  of 
me  for  death,  for  thou  art  God  ;  there  is  no  need,  but  for  thee  to 
speak  the  word.  If  possible, — thy  will  be  done, — leave  me  not 
long  in  aflfiiction,  ncr  to  die  suddenly,  without  bidding  adieu  to 
my  brethren,  and  let  me  die  in  their  sight,  after  a  short  illness. 
Let  all  things  be  ordered  against  the  day  of  removing  from  one 
world  to  another,  that  there  be  no  confusion  nor  disorder,  but  a 
quiet  discharge  in  peace.  O  grant  me  this,  for  the  sake  of  thine 
agony  in  the  garden  !    Amen. — C.  E. 


His  Power  of  Personification.  ^51 

"  XII.  Grant,  O  blessed  Lord  !  that  nothing  may  grow  and  be 
matured  in  me,  to  occasion  thee  to  cast  me  off  from  the  service 
of  the  sanctuary,  like  the  sons  of  Eli;  and  for  the  sake  of  thine 
unbounded  merit,  let  not  my  days  be  longer  than  my  usefuluess. 
O  let  me  not  be  like  lumber  in  a  house  in  the  end  of  my  days, — - 
in  the  way  of  others  to  work.     Amen. — C.  E. 

*'  XIII.  I  beseech  thee,  O  Redeemer !  to  present  these  my  sup- 
plications before  the  Father :  and  oh !  inscribe  them  in  thy  book 
with  thine  own  immortal  pen,  while  I  am  writing  them  with  my 
mortal  hand,  in  my  book  on  earth.  According  to  the  depths  of 
thy  merit,  thine  undiminished  grace,  and  thy  compassion,  and 
thy  manner  unto  thy  people,  oh  !  attach  thy  name,  in  thine  up- 
per court,  to  these  unworthy  petitions  ;  and  set  thine  amen  to 
them,  as  I  do  on  my  part  of  the  covenant.  Amen. — Christmas 
Evans,  Llangevni,  Anglesea,  April  10,  18 — ." 

No  wonder,  after  so  solemn  and  affecting  a  transaction 
as  this,  Mr.  Evans  says,  "  I  felt  a  sweet  peace  and  tranquil- 
lity of  soul."  Nor  do  we  wonder  that  beneath  the  power 
of  such  a  life  he  increased  churches  by  scores  and  members 
by  many  hundreds. 

The  sermons  of  Christmas  Evans  can  only  be  known 
through  the  medium  of  translation.  They  perhaps  do  not 
suffer  as  most  translations  suffer ;  but  the  rendering  in 
Enghsh  is  feeble  in  comparison  with  the  nervous,  bony,  and 
muscular  Welsh  language.  The  sermons,  however,  clearly 
reveal  the  man  ;  they  reveal  the  fulness  and  strength  of  his 
mind  ;  they  abound  in  instructive  thoughts  ;  their  building 
and  structure  is  always  good  ;  and  many  of  the  passages, 
and  even  several  of  the  sermons,  might  be  taken  as  models 
for  strong  and  effective  pulpit  oratory.  Like  all  the  preach- 
ers of  his  day,  and  order  of  mind  and  pecuharity  of  theo- 
logical sentiment  and  training,  his  use  of  the  imagery  of 
Scripture  was  remarkably  free  ;  his  use  also  of  texts  often 
was  as  significant  and  suggestive  as  it  was  certainly  origi- 
nal,    No  doubt,  for  the  appreciation  of  his  purpose  and  his 


352    Pulpit  Monographs'.  Christmas  Evans. 

power  in  its  larger  degree,  he  needed  an  audience  well  ac- 
quainted with  Scripture,  and  sympathetic  in  an  eminent 
manner  with  the  mind  of  the  preacher.  There  seem  to 
have  been  periods  and  moments  when  his  mind  soared 
aloft  into  some  of  the  highest  fields  of  truth  and  emotion. 
Yet  his  wing  never  seemed  little  or  pretty  in  its  flight. 
There  was  the  firmness  and  strength  of  the  beat  of  a  noble 
eagle.  Some  eloquence  sings,  some  sounds ;  in  one  we 
hear  the  voice  of  a  bird  hovering  in  the  air,  in  the  other 
we  listen  to  the  thunder  of  the  plume ;  the  eloquence  of 
Christmas  Evans  was  of  the  latter  order. 

But  our  preacher  has  often  been  called  the  Bunyan  of 
Wales — the  Bunyan  of  the  pulpit.  In  some  measure  the 
epithet  does  designate  him  ;  he  was  a  great  master  of  para- 
bolic simihtude  and  comparison.  This  is  a  kind  of  preach- 
ing ever  eminently  popular  with  the  multitude  ;  it  requires 
rather  a  redundancy  of  fancy  than  imagination — perhaps  a 
mind  considerably  disciplined  and  educated  would  be  un- 
able to  indulge  in  such  exercises — a  self-possession  balanced 
by  ignorance  of  many  of  the  canons  of  taste,  or  utterly  ob- 
livious and  careless  of  them  ;  for  this  is  a  kind  of  teaching 
of  which  we  hear  very  Httle.  Now  we  have  not  one  preacher 
in  England  who  would  perhaps  dare  to  use  or  who  could 
use  well  the  parabolic  style.  This  was  the  especial  power 
of  Christmas  Evans.  He  excelled  in  personification ;  he 
would  seem  to  have  been  frequently  mastered  by  this  fac- 
ulty. The  abstractions  of  thought,  the  disembodied  phan- 
toms of  another  world  came  clothed  in  form,  and  feature, 
and  color, — at  his  bidding  they  came. 

Ghostly  shajDes 
Met  him  at  noontide ;  Fear,  and  trembling  Hope, 
Silence,  and  Foresight ;  Death  the  skeleton, 
And  Time  the  shadow. 

Thus  he  frequently  astounded  his  congregations  not  merely 


Tlie  Gospel  Mould.  2^3 

by  pouring  round  his  subject  the  varied  hues  of  hght  or 
space,  but  by  giving  to  the  eye  defined  shapes  and  reahza- 
tions.  We  do  not  wonder  to  hear  him  say,  "If  I  only  en- 
tered the  pulpit  I  felt  raised  as  it  were  to  Paradise — above 
my  afflictions,  until  I  forgot  my  adversity  ;  yea,  I  felt  my 
mountain  strong.  I  said  to  a  brother  once,  '  Brother,  the 
doctrine,  the  confidence,  and  strength  I  feel  will  make  per- 
sons dance  with  joy  in  some  parts  of  Wales.'  'Yea,  bro- 
ther,' said  he,  with  tears  flowing  down  his  eyes.**  He  was 
visited  by  remarkable  dreams.  Once,  previous  to  a  time 
of  great  refreshing,  he  dreamt : 

He  thought  he  was  in  the  church  at  Caerphilly,  and  found 
many  harps  hanging  about  the  pulpit,  wrapped  in  coverings  of 
green.  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  I  will  take  down  the  harps  of  heaven 
in  this  place."  In  removing  the  covering,  he  found  the  ark  of 
the  covenant,  inscribed  with  the  name  of  Jehovah.  Then 
he  cried,  "  Brethren,  the  Lord  has  come  to  us,  according  to  his 
promise,  and  in  answer  to  our  prayers."  In  that  very  place,  he 
shortly  afterward  had  the  satisfaction  of  receiving  one  hundred 
and  forty  converts  into  the  church,  as  the  fruit  of  his  ministry. 

As  we  have  said,  nothing  can  well  illustrate  on  paper  the 
power  of  the  orator's  speech,  but  the  following  may  serve 
as  in  some  measure  illustrating  his  method  : — 

THE    GOSPEL   MOULD. 

I  compare  such  preachers  to  a  miner,  who  should  go  to  the 
quarry  where  he  raised  the  ore,  and  taking  his  sledge  in  his 
hand,  should  endeavor  to  form  bars  of  iron  of  the  ore  in  its 
rough  state,  without  a  furnace  to  melt  it,  or  a  rolling-mill  to 
roll  it  out,  or  moulds  to  cast  the  metal,  and  conform  the  casts  to 
their  patterns.  The  gospel  is  like  a  form  or  mould,  and  sinners 
are  to  be  melted,  as  it  were,  and  cast  into  it.  "  But  ye  have 
obeyed  from  the  heart  that  form  of  doctrine  which  was  deliv- 
ered you,"  or  into  which  you  were  delivered,  as  is  the  marginal 
reading,  so  that  your  hearts  ran  into  the  mould.  Evangelical 
preachers  have,  in  the  name  of  Christ,  a  mould  or  form  to  cast 


354    Pulpit  Monographs :  Christmas  Evans. 

the  minds  of  men  into ;  as  Solomon,  the  vessels  of  the  temple. 
The  Sadducees  and  Pharisees  had  their  forms,  and  legal  preach- 
ers have  their  forms ;  but  evangelical  preachers  should  bring 
with  them  the  "  form  of  sound  words,"  so  that,  if  the  hearers 
believe,  or  are  melted  into  it,  Christ  may  be  formed  in  their 
hearts, — then  they  will  be  as  born  of  the  truth,  and  the  image 
of  the  truth  will  appear  in  their  sentiments  and  experience,  and 
in  their  conduct  in  the  Church,  in  the  family,  and  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. Preachers  without  the  mould,  are  all  those  who  do 
not  preach  all  the  points  of  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God. 

THE  MAN   IN   THE   STEEL   HOUSE. 

A  man  in  a  trance  saw  himself  locked  up  in  a  house  of  steel, 
through  the  walls  of  which,  as  through  walls  of  glass,  he  could 
see  his  enemies  assailing  him  with  swords,  spears,  and  bayonets  ; 
but  his  life  was  safe,  for  his  fortress  was  locked  within.  So  is 
the  Christian  secure  amid  the  assaults  of  the  w^orld.  His  "  life 
is  hid  with  Christ  in  God." 

The  Psalmist  prayed — "  When  my  heart  is  overwhelmed  with- 
in me,  lead  me  to  the  rock  that  is  higher  than  I."  Imagine  a 
man  seated  on  a  lofty  rock  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  where  he  has 
everything  necessary  for  his  support,  shelter,  safety,  and  com- 
fort. The  billows  heave  and  break  beneath  him,  and  the  hun- 
gry monsters  of  the  deep  wait  to  devour  him ;  but  he  is  on 
high,  above  the  rage  cf  the  former,  and  the  reach  of  the  latter. 
Such  is  the  security  of  faith. 

But  why  need  I  mention  the  rock  and  the  steel  house  ?  for 
the  peace  that  is  in  Christ  is  a  tower  ten  thousand  times 
stronger,  and  a  refuge  ten  thousand  times  safer.  Behold  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  exposed  to  famine,  nakedness,  peril,  and 
sword  —  incarcerated  in  dungeons ;  thrown  to  wild  beasts ; 
consumed  in  the  fire ;  sawn  asunder ;  cruelly  mocked  and 
scourged;  driven  .from  friends  and  home,  to  wander  among 
the  mountains,  and  lodge  in  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth ; 
being  destitute,  afflicted,  tormented;  sorrowful,  but  always 
rejoicing ;  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed ;  an  ocean  of  peace 
within,  which  swallows  up  all  their  sufferings. 

"Neither  death,"  with  all  its  terrors;  "nor  life,"  with  all  its 
allurements ;    "  nor  things   present,"   with    all   their  i^leasure ; 


Tlie  Man  in  the  Steel  House. 


355 


"northings  to  come,"  with  all  their  promise;  "  nor  height"  of 
prosperity  ;  "  nor  depth  "  of  adversity ;  "  nor  angels  "  of  evil ; 
"nor  principalities"  of  darkness  ;  ''shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus."  "  God  is  our 
refuge  and  strength  ;  a  very  present  help  in  trouble.  Therefore 
will  not  we  fear,  though  the  earth  be  moved,  and  though  the 
mountains  be  carried  into  the  midst  of  the  sea — though  the 
waters  thereof  roar  and  be  troubled — though  the  mountains 
shake  with  the  swelling  thereof."  This  is  the  language  of 
strong  faith  in  the  peace  of  Christ.  How  is  it  with  you  amid 
such  turmoil  and  commotion  ?  Is  all  peaceful  within  ?  Do  you 
feel  secure  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  as  in  a  strong  fortress — as 
in  a  city  well  supplied  and  defended  ? 

"  There  is  a  river,  the  streams  whereof  shall  make  glad  the 
city  of  God,  the  holy  place  of  the  tabernacles  of  the  most  high. 
God  is  in  the  midst  of  her;  she  shall  not  be  moved.  God  shall 
help  her,  and  that  right  early."  "Unto  the  upright,  there 
ariseth  light  in  the  darkness."  The  bright  and  morning  star, 
shining  upon  their  pathway,  cheers  them  in  their  journey  home 
to  their  Father's  house.  And  when  they  come  to  pass  over 
Jordan,  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  shall  have  risen  upon  them, 
with  healing  in  his  wings.  Already  they  see  the  tops  of  the 
mountains  of  immortality,  gilded  with  his  beams,  beyond  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  Behold,  yonder,  old  Simeon 
hoisting  his  sails,  and  saying — "  Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy  ser- 
vant depart  in  peace,  according  to  thy  word ;  for  mine  eyes 
have  seen  thy  salvation."  Such  is  the  peace  of  Jesus,  sealed  to 
all  them  that  believe,  by  the  blood  of  His  cross. 

When  we  walk  through  the  field  of  battle,  slippery  with 
blood,  and  strewn  with  the  bodies  of  the  slain — when  we  hear 
the  shrieks  and  the  groans  of  the  wounded  and  the  dying — 
when  v/e  see  the  country  wasted,  cities  burned,  houses  pillaged, 
widows  and  orphans  wailing  in  the  track  of  the  victorious 
army,  we  cannot  help  exclaiming— O,  what  a  blessing  is  peace  ! 
When  we  are  obliged  to  witness  family  turmoils  and  strifes — 
when  we  see  parents  and  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  masters 
and  servants,  husbands  and  wives,  contending  with  each  other 
like  tigers — we  retire  as  from  a  smoky"  house,  and  exclaim  as 


356     Pulpit  Monographs :  Cliristmas  Evans, 

we  go — O,  what  a  blessing  is  peace  !  When  duty  calls  us  into 
that  Church,  where  envy  and  malice  prevail,  and  the  spirit  of 
harmony  is  supplanted  by  discord  and  contention — when  we  see 
brethren,  who  ought  to  be  bound  together  in  love,  full  of  pride, 
hatred,  confusion,  and  every  evil  w^ork — we  quit  the  unhallowed 
scene  with  painful  feelings  of  repulsion,  repeating  the  exclama- 
tion— O,  what  a  blessing  is  peace  ! 

But  how  much  more  precious  in  the  case  of  the  awakened 
sinner  !  See  him  standing,  terror-stricken,  before  Mount  Sinai. 
Thunders  roll  above  him — lightnings  flash  around  him — the 
earth  trembles  beneath  him,  as  if  ready  to  open  her  mouth  and 
swallow  him  up.  The  sound  of  the  trumpet  rings  through  his 
soul — "  Guilty  !  guilty  !  guilty  !  "  Pale  and  trembling,  he  looks 
eagerly  around  him,  and  sees  nothing  but  revelations  of  wrath. 
Overwhelmed  with  fear  and  dismay,  he  cries  out — "  O  wretched 
man  that  I  am  !  Who  shall  deliver  me  ?  What  shall  I  do  ?  " 
A  voice  reaches  his  ear — ^penetrates  his  heart — "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world  ! "  He 
turns  his  eye  to  Calvary.  Wondrous  vision !  Emmanuel  expir- 
ing upon  the  cross !  the  sinner's  Substitute  satisfying  the 
demand  of  the  law  against  the  sinner !  Now  all  his  fears  are 
hushed,  and  rivers  of  peace  flow  into  his  soul.  This  is  the 
peace  of  Christ. 

How  precious  is  this  peace,  amid  all  the  dark  vicissitudes  of 
life  !  How  invaluable  this  jewel,  through  all  the  dangers  of  the 
wilderness  !  How  cheering  to  know  that  Jesus,  who  hath  loved 
us  even  unto  death,  is  the  pilot  of  our  perilous  voyage ;  that  he 
rules  the  winds  and  the  waves,  and  can  hush  them  to  silence  at 
his  will,  and  bring  the  frailest  bark  of  faith  to  the  desired 
haven !  Trusting  where  he  cannot  trace  his  Master's  footsteps, 
the  disciple  is  joyful  amid  the  darkest  dispensations  of  Divine 
Providence  ;  turning  all  his  sorrows  into  songs,  and  all  his  tribu- 
lations into  triumphs.  "  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace, 
whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee,  because  he  trusteth  in  thee." 

THE   MYSTERIOUS   PACKET. 

In  this  world,  every  man  receives  according  to  his  faith  ;  in 
the  world  to  come,  every  man  shall  receive  according  to  his 
w^orks.     "  Blessed  are  ihe  dead  who  died  in  the  Lord,  for  they 


TTie  Mysterious  Packet  057 

rest  from  their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow  them."  Their 
works  do  not  go  before  them  to  divide  the  river  Jordan,  and 
open  the  gates  of  heaven.  This  is  done  by  their  faith.  But 
their  works  are  left  behind,  as  if  done  up  in  a  packet,  on  this 
side  of  the  river.  John  saw  the  great  white  throne  descending 
for  judgment,  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  thereon,  and  all  nations 
gathered  before  him.  He  is  dividing  the  righteous  from  the 
wicked,  as  the  shepherd  divideth  the  sheep  from  the  goats. 
The  wicked  are  set  on  the  left  hand,  and  the  awful  sentence  is 
pronounced — "  Depart  from  me,  ye  accursed,  into  everlasting 
fire,  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels  ! "  But  the  righteous 
are  placed  on  the  right-hand,  to  hear  the  joyful  welcome — 
"  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared 
for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  !  "  The  books  are 
opened,  and  Mercy  presents  the  packets  that  were  left  on  the 
other  side  of  Jordan.  They  are  all  opened,  and  the  books  are 
read  wherein  all  their  acts  of  benevolence  and  virtue  are  re- 
corded. Justice  examines  the  several  packets,  and  answers — 
"  All  right.  Here  they  are.  Thus  it  is  written — ^  I  was  hungry, 
and  ye  gave  me  meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  drink ; 
I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in ;  I  was  naked,  and  ye  clothed 
me ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me ;  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye 
came  unto  me.' "  The  righteous  look  upon  each  other  with 
wonder,  and  answer — "  Those  packets  must  belong  to  others. 
We  knew  nothing  of  all  that.  "We  recollect  the  wormwood  and 
the  gall.  We  recollect  the  straight  gate,  the  narrow  way,  and 
the  slough  of  desi3ond.  We  recollect  the  heavy  burden  that 
pressed  so  hard  upon  us,  and  how  it  fell  from  our  shoulders  at 
the  sight  of  the  cross.  We  recollect  the  time  when  the  eyes  of 
our  minds  were  opened,  to  behold  the  evil  of  sin,  the  depravity 
of  our  hearts,  and  the  excellency  of  our  Redeemer.  We  recollect 
the  time  when  our  stubborn  wills  were  subdued  in  the  day  of 
His  power,  so  that  we  were  enabled  both  to  will  and  to  do  of 
His  good  pleasure.  We  recollect  the  time  when  we  obtained 
hope  in  the  merit  of  Christ,  and  felt  the  efficacy  of  his  blood 
applied  to  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  we  shall  never 
forget  the  time  when  we  first  experienced  the  love  of  God  shed 
abroad  in  our  hearts.  O,  how  sweetly  and  powerfully  it  con- 
strained us  to  love  Him,  His  cause,  and  His  ordinances  !     How 


358     Pulj^it  Monographs :   Gliristmas  Evans. 

we  panted  after  communion  and  fellowship  with  Him,  as  the 
hart  panteth  after  the  water-brooks  !  All  this,  and  a  thousand 
other  things,  are  as  fresh  in  our  memory  as  ever.  But  we  recol- 
lect nothing  of  those  bundles  of  good  works.  AVliere  was  it  ? 
Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  hungry,  and  fed  thee ;  or  thirsty,  and 
gave  thee  drink ;  or  a  stranger,  and  took  thee  in ;  or  naked,  and 
clothed  thee  ?  We  have  no  more  recollection  than  the  dead,  of 
ever  having  visited  thee  in  prison,  or  ministered  to  thee  in  sick- 
ness. Surely,  those  bundles  cannot  belong  to  us."  Mercy  re- 
plies— "  Yes,  verily,  they  belong  to  you ;  for  your  names  arc 
upon  them ;  and  besides,  they  have  not  been  out  of  my  hands 
since  you  left  them  on  the  stormy  banks  of  Jordan."  And  the 
King  answers — ''  Verily,  I  say  unto  you.  Inasmuch  as  ye  have 
done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done 
it  unto  me." 

If  the  righteous  do  not  know  their  own  good  works,  if  they 
do  not  recognize  in  the  sheaves  which  they  reap  at  the  resurrec- 
tion, the  seed  which  they  have  sown  with  tears  on  earth,  they 
certainly  cannot  make  these  things  the  foundation  of  their  hopes 
of  heaven.  Christ  crucified  is  their  sole  dependence  for  accept- 
ance with  God,  in  time  and  in  eternity.  Christ  crucified  is  the 
great  object  of  their  faith,  and  the  centre  of  their  aficctions ; 
and  while  their  love  to  him  prompts  them  to  live  soberly,  and 
righteously,  and  godly,  in  this  present  evil  world,  they  cordially 
exclaim — "  Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us,  but  to  thy  name,  O  Lord, 
give  glory ! " 

CHRIST   THE   CEDAR   OP  THE  FOREST. 

This  cedar  not  only  beautifies  the  forest,  but  also  affords  shade 
and  shelter  for  the  fowls  of  the  air.  "We  have  the  same  idea  in 
the  parable  of  the  mustard-seed  : — "  the  birds  of  the  air  came 
and  lodged  in  the  branches  thereof."  This  is  the  fulfilment  of 
the  promise  concerning  the  Shiloli : — "  to  him  shall  the  gather- 
ing of  the  people  be."  It  is  the  drawing  of  sinners  to  Christ; 
and  the  union  of  believers  with  God. 

"  All  fowl  of  every  wing."  Sinners  of  every  age  and  every 
degree — sinners  of  all  languages,  colors  and  climes — sinners  of 
all  principles,  customs,  and  habits — sinners  whose  crimes  are  of 
the  blackest  hue — sinners  carrying  about  them  the  savor  of  the 


Tlie  Hind  of  the  Morning.  3^9 

brimstone  of  hell — sinners  deserving  eternal  damnation — sinners 
perishing  for  lack  of  knowledge — sinners  pierced  by  the  arrows 
of  conviction — sinners  ready  to  sink  under  the  burdens  of  sin — 
sinners  overwhelmed  with  terror  and  despair — are  seen  flying  to 
Christ  as  a  cloud,  and  as  doves  to  their  windows — moving  to 
the  ark  of  mercy  before  the  door  is  shut — seeking  rest  in  the 
shadow  of  this  goodly  cedar. 

Mr.  Evans  was  very  fond  of  the  use  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures  in  their  more  spiritual  relations.  The  fol- 
lowing extract  will  not  perhaps  be  acceptable  to  the  tastes 
of  all  readers,  but  it  is  an  illustration  of  Mr.  Evans's  very 
natural  style  : 

THE  HIND   OF  THE  MOKNING  ON  THE  MOUNTAINS. 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  the  twenty-second  psalm  has  par- 
ticular reference  to  Christ.  This  is  evident  from  his  own  ap- 
propriation of  the  first  verse  upon  the  cross — "  My  God  !  my 
God  I  why  hast  thou  forsaken  mc  ? "  The  title  of  the  psahn  is 
— Aijeleth  Shahar  ;  which  signifies — A  hart,  or — the  hind  of  the 
morning.  The  striking  metaphors  which  it  contains  are  de- 
scriptive of  Messiah's  peculiar  sufferings.  He  is  the  hart  or  hind 
of  the  morning,  hunted  by  the  black  prince  with  his  hell-hounds 
— by  Satan  and  all  his  allies.  The  "  dogs,"  the  "  lions,"  the 
"  unicorns,"  and  the  "  strong  bulls  of  Bashan,"  with  their  de- 
vouring, teeth,  and  their  terrible  horns,  pursued  Him  from 
Bethlehem  to  Calvary.  They  beset  him  in  the  manger,  gnashed 
upon  Him  in  the  garden,  and  well-nigh  tore  Him  to  pieces  upon 
the  cross.  And  still  they  persecute  Him  in  His  <jause  and  in  the 
persons  and  interests  of  his  people. 

The  faith  of  the  church  anticipated  the  coming  of  Christ, 
"  like  a  roe  or  a  young  heart,"  with  the  dawn  of  the  day  promised 
in  Eden ;  and  we  hear  her  exclaiming  in  the  Canticles — "  The 
voice  of  my  beloved !  behold,  he  cometh,  leaping  upon  the 
mountains,  and  skipping  upon  the  hills  !"  She  heard  him  an- 
nounce His  advent  in  the  promise — '*  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy  will, 
O  God ! "  and  with  prophetic  eye,  saw  him  leaping  from  the 
mountains  of  eternity  to  the  mountains  of  time,  and  skipping 


360     Pulpit  Monographs :  Christmas  Evans. 

from  hill  to  hill  throughout  the  land  of  Palestine,  going  about 
doing  good.  In  the  various  types  and  shadows  of  the  law,  she 
beheld  Him  *'  standing  by  the  wall,  looking  forth  at  the  windows, 
showing  Himself  through  the  lattice;"  and  then  she  sang — 
"  Until  the  daybreak,  and  the  shadows  flee  away,  turn  my  be- 
loved, and  be  thou  like  the  roe  or  the  young  hart  upon  the 
mountains  of  Bether  !  Bloody  sacrifices  revealed  Him  to  her 
view  going  down  to  the  "  vineyards  of  red  wune  ;''  whence  she 
traced  Him  to  the  meadows  of  Gospel  ordinances,  where  "  he 
feedeth  among  the  lilies  " — to  "  the  gardens  of  cucumbers,"  and 
**  the  beds  of  spices ;"  and  then  she  sang  to  Him  again — "  Make 
haste  " — or,  flee  away — "  my  beloved !  be  thou  like  the  roe  or 
the  young  hart  upon  the  mountains  of  spices  !" 

Thus  she  longed  to  see  Him,  first  "on  the  mountain  of 
Bether,"  and  then  on  the  "  mountain  of  spices."  On  both  moun- 
tains she  saw  Him  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  on  both  she 
may  still  trace  the  footsteps  of  His  majesty  and  His  mercy.  The 
former  He  hath  tracked  with  His  own  blood,  and  His  path  upon 
the  latter  is  redolent  of  frankincense  and  myrrh. 

Bether  signifies  division.  This  is  the  craggy  mountain  of 
calvary  ;  whither  the  "  Hind  of  the  morning  "  fled  followed  by 
all  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest,  and  the  hunting-dogs  of  hell, 
summoned  to  the  pursuit,  and  urged  on  by  the  prince  of  perdi- 
tion ;  till  the  victim,  in  His  agony,  sweat  great  drops  of  blood 
— ^where  He  was  terribly  crushed  between  the  cliffs,  and  dread- 
fully mangled  by  sharp  and  ragged  rocks — where  He  was 
seized  by  Death,  the  great  greyhound  of  the  bottomless  pit — 
whence  He  leaped  the  precipice  without  breaking  a  bone  ;  and 
sank  in  the  dead  sea,  sank  to  its  utmost  depth,  and  saw  no  cor- 
ruption. 

Behold  the  "  Hind  of  the  morning  "  on  that  dreadful  moun- 
tain !  It  is  the  place  of  skulls,  where  death  hold  his  carnival  in 
companionship  with  worms,  and  hell  laughs  in  the  face  of 
heaven.  Dark  storms  are  gathering  there — convolving  clouds, 
charged  with  no  common  wrath.  Terrors  set  tliemselves  in  bat- 
tle array  before  the  Son  of  God ;  and  tempests  burst  upon  Him, 
which  might  sweep  all  mankind  in  a  moment  to  eternal  ruin. 
Hark  !  hear  ye  not  the  subterranean  thunder  ?    Feel  ye  not  the 


TTie  Hind  of  the  Morning,  ^61 

trcmour  of  the  mountain  ?  It  is  the  shock  of  Satan's  artillery, 
playing  upon  the  Captain  of  our  salvation.  It  is  the  explosion 
of  the  magazine  of  vengeance.  Lo,  the  earth  is  quaking,  the 
rocks  are  rending,  the  graves  are  opening,  the  dead  are  rising, 
and  all  nature  stands  aghast  at  the  conflict  of  Divine  mercy  with 
the  powers  of  darkness.  One  dread  convulsion  more,  one  cry 
of  desperate  agony,  and  Jesus  dies — an  arrow  has  entered  into 
His  heart.  IS'ow  leap  the  lions,  roaring  upon  their  prey ;  and 
the  bulls  of  Bashan  are  bellowing ;  and  the  dogs  of  perdition 
are  barking ;  and  the  unicorns  toss  their  horns  on  high ;  and  the 
devil,  dancing  with  exultant  joy,  clanks  his  iron  chains,  and 
thrusts  up  his  fettered  hands  in  defiance  towards  the  face  of 
Jehovah ! 

Go  a  little  further  upon  the  mountain,  and  you  come  to  a  new 
tomb  hewn  out  of  the  rock."  There  lies  a  dead  body.  It  is  the 
body  of  Jesus.  His  disciples  have  laid  it  down  in  sorrow,  and 
returned  weeping  to  the  city.  Mary's  heart  is  broken,  Peter's 
zeal  is  quenched  in  tears,  and  John  would  fain  lie  down  and  die 
in  his  Master's  grave.  The  sepulchre  is  closed  up  and  sealed, 
and  a  Roman  sentry  placed  at  its  entrance.  On  the  morning  of 
the  third  day,  while  it  is  yet  dark,  two  or  three  women  come  to 
anoint  the  body.  They  are  debating  about  the  great  stone  at 
the  mouth  of  the  cave,  "  Who  shall  roll  it  away  ? "  says  one  of 
them.  ''  Pity  we  did  not  bring  Peter  or  John  with  us."  But  ar- 
riving, they  find  the  stone  already  rolled  away,  and  one  sitting 
upon  it  whose  countenance  is  like  lightning,  and  whose  gar- 
ments are  white  as  the  light.  The  steel-clad,  iron-hearted  sol- 
diers lie  around  him  like  men  slain  in  battle,  having  swooned 
in  terror.  He  speaks  : — "  Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the 
dead  !  He  is  not  here ;  He  is  risen ;  He  is  gone  forth  from  this 
cave  victoriously." 

It  is  even  so !  for  there  are  the  shroud,  and  the  napkin,  and 
the  heavenly  watchers ;  and  when  He  awoke  and  cast  off  His 
grave-clothes,  the  earthquake  was  felt  in  the  city  and  jarred  the 
gates  of  hell.  *'  The  Hind  of  the  morning  "  is  up  earlier  than 
any  of  his  pursuers,  "  leaping  upon  the  mountains,  and  skipping 
upon  the  hills."  He  is  seen  first  with  Mary  at  the  tpmb  •  thep. 
with  the  disciples  in  Jerusalem  ;  then  with  two  of  them  on  tliQ 
16 


a"iViiEJ>ifij 


362     Ptolpit  Monographs :  Ch^stmas  JEvans. 

way  to  Emmaus ;  then  going  before  his  brethren  into  Galilee ; 
and  finally  leaping  from  the  top  of  Olivet  to  the  hills  of  Para- 
dise ;  fleeing  away  to  "  the  mountain  of  sj)ices,"  where  he  shall 
never  more  be  hunted  by  the  black  prince  and  his  hounds. 

Christ  is  perfect  master  of  gravitation,  and  all  the  laws  of  na- 
ture are  obedient  to  His  will.  Once  He  walked  upon  the  water, 
as  if  it  were  marble  beneath  His  feet ;  and  now  as  He  stands  bless- 
ing His  people,  the  glorious  form  so  recently  nailed  to  the  cross, 
and  still  more  recently  cold  in  the  grave,  begins  to  ascend  like 
"  the  living  creature  "  in  Ezekiel's  vision,  *'  lifted  up  from  the 
earth,"  till  nearly  out  of  sight ;  when  "  the  chariots  of  God,  even 
thousands  of  angels,"  receive  Him,  and  haste  to  the  celestial  city, 
waking  the  thrones  of  eternity  with  this  jubilant  chorus — "  Lift 
up  your  heads,  O,  ye  gates  !  and  be  ye  lifted  up,  ye  everlasting 
doors  !  and  the  King  of  Glory  shall  come  in  1" 

One  of  the  most  effective  of  IVIr.  Evan's  parables,  even 
in  spite  of  the  anachronism  at  the  close,  for  so  it  must  be 
regarded  was — 

THE  JOURNEY  FOR  THE  YOUNG  CHILD. 

Herod  sj^id  to  the  wise  men,  "  Go  and  search  diligentlv  for  the 
young  child."  The  magi  immediately  commenced  their  inqui- 
ries, according  to  the  instructions  they  received.  I  see  them  ap- 
proaching some  village,  and  when  they  come  to  the  gate  they 
inquire,  "  Do  you  know  anything  of  the  young  child  ?  "  The 
gateman  comes  to  the  door ;  and,  supposing  them  to  have  asked 
the  amount  of  the  toll,  says,  "  O,  three  halfpence  an  ass  is  to 
pay."  "We  do  not  ask  what  is  to  pay,"  reply  they,  *' but  do 
you  know  anything  of  the  young  child  ?  "  "  No  ;  I  know  noth- 
ing in  the  world,"  answers  he ;  "  but  there  is  a  blacksmith's  shop 
a  little  farther  on  ;  inquire  there,  and  you  will  be  veiy  likely  to 
obtain  some  intelligence  concerning  him." 

The  wise  men  proceed,  and  when  they  come  to  the  black- 
smith's shop,  they  ask,  "  Do  you  know  anything  of  the  young 
child  ? "  A  harsh  voice  answers,  "  There  is  no  such  thing  pos- 
sible for  you,  as  having  the  asses  shod  now ;  you  shall  in  two 
hours  hence."  "  We  do  not  aslc  you  to  shoe  the  asses,"  say  they ; 
"but  inquire  for  the  young  child,  if  you  know   anything  ot 


Four  Varieties  of  Preacliing.  ^63 

him  ? "  "  Nothing  in  the  world,"  says  the  blacksmith ;  "  but 
inquire  at  the  tavern  that  is  on  your  road,  and  probably  you  may 
hear  something  of  him  there." 

On  they  go,  and  stand  opposite  the  door  of  the  tavern,  and 
cry,  "  Do  you  know  anything  of  the  young  child  ? "  The  land- 
lord, thinking  they  call  for  porter,  bids  the  servant  attend,  saying, 
"  Go,  girl ;  go  with  a  quart  of  porter  to  the  strangers."  "  We 
do  not  ask  for  either  porter  or  ale,"  say  the  wise  men;  "but 
something  about  the  young  child  that  is  born."  "  I  know  noth- 
ing in  the  world  of  him,"  says  the  landlord ;  but  turn  to  the 
shop  on  the  left  hand;  the  shopkeeper  reads  all  the  papers,  and 
you  will  be  likely  to  hear  something  respecting  him  there." 

They  proceed  accordingly  towards  the  shop,  and  repeat  their 
inquiry,  "  Do  you  know  anything  of  the  young  child,  here  ? " 
The  shopkeeper  says  to  his  apprentice,  *i  Reach  half  a  quarter  of 
tobacco  to  the  strangers."  *'  We  do  not  ask  for  tobacco,"  say 
the  wise  men;  "but  for  some  intelligence  of  the  young  child." 
"  I  do  not  know  anything  of  him,"  replies  the  shopkeeper ;  "  but 
there  is  an  old  Rabbi  living  in  the  upper  end  of  the  village ; 
call  on  him,  and  very  probably  he  will  give  you  all  the  informa- 
tion you  desire  respecting  the  object  of  your  search." 

They  immediately  directed  their  course  towards  the  house  of 
the  Rabbi  ;  and  having  reached  it,  they  knock  at  the  door  :  and 
being  admitted  into  his  presence,  they  ask  him  if  he  knows 
anything  of  the  young  child.  "  Come  in,"  says  he ;  and  when 
they  have  entered  and  are  seated,  the  Rabbi  refers  to  his  books 
and  chronicles,  and  says  he  to  the  wise  men,  "  There  is  some- 
thing wonderful  about  to  take  place ;  some  remarkable  person 
has  been  or  is  to  be  born  ;  but  the  best  thing  is  for  you  to  go 
down  yonder  street:  there  is  living  there,  by  the  river  side,  the 
son  of  an  old  priest ;  you  will  be  sure  to  know  all  of  him." 

Having  bid  the  old  Rabbi  a  respectful  farewell,  on  tliey  go  : 
and  reaching  the  river  side,  they  inquire  of  the  bystanders  for 
the  son  of  the  old  priest.  Immediately  he  is  pointed  out  to 
them.  There  is  a  "  raiment  of  cameVs  hair  about  him,  and  a 
leathern  girdle  about  his  loins."  They  ask  him  if  he  knows 
anything  of  the  young  child.  "  Yes,"  says  he,  "  there  he  is : 
behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world  ! 


364    P^il]yit  Mo7iograplis :  Ohristmas  Evans. 

There  he  is  ;  he  will  bruise  the  dragon's  head,  and  bring  in 
everlasting  righteousness  to  every  one  that  believeth  in  his 
name/' 

He  was  wont  thus  to  describe  the — 

FOUR  VARIETIES   OF    PREACHD^G. 

I  perceive  four  strong  men  on  their  journey  towards  Lazarus's 
grave,  for  the  purpose  of  raising  him  to  life.  One  of  them,  who 
is  eminent  for  his  piety,  says,  ''  I  will  descend  into  the  grave, 
and  will  take  with  me  a  bowl  of  the  salt  of  duties,  and  will  rub 
him  well  with  the  sponge  of  natural  ability,"  He  enters  the 
grave,  and  commences  his  rubbing  process.  I  watch  his  opera- 
tions at  a  distance,  and  after  a  while  inquire,  "Well,  are  there 
any  symptoms  of  life  there  ?  Does  he  arise,  does  he  breathe, 
my  brother  ?  "  "  No  such  thing,"  replies  he,  "he  is  still  quiet, 
and  I  cannot  salt  him  to  will — and  besides  this,  his  smell  is 
rather  heavy." 

"  Well,"  says  the  second,  "  come  you  out ;  I  was  afraid  that 
your  means  would  not  answer  the  purpose ;  let  me  enter  the 
grave."  The  second  enters,  carrying  in  his  hand  a  whip  of  the 
scorpions  of  threatening ;  and,  says  he,  "  I  will  make  him  feel." 
He  directs  his  scorpion  and  fiery  ministry  at  the  dead  corpse ; 
but  in  vain,  and  I  hear  him  crying  out,  "  All  is  unsuccessful ; 
dead  he  is  after  all." 

Says  the  third,  "Make  room  for  me  to  enter,  and  I  will  see  if 
I  cannot  bring  him  to  life."  He  enters  the  grave  and  takes  with 
him  a  musical  pipe ;  it  is  melodious  as  the  song  of  love ;  but 
there  is  no  dancing  in  the  grave. 

The  fourth  says,  "  Means  of  themselves  can  efi'ect  nothing,  but 
I  will  go  for  Jesus,  who  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life."  Im- 
mediately he  leaves  to  seek  for  Christ,  and  speedily  returns,  ac- 
companied by  the  Saviour.  And  when  the  Lord  came  He  stands 
in  the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  and  cries  out,  "  Lazarus,  come 
forth  1 "  and  the  dead  body  is  instantaneously  instinct  with  life. 

Let  our  confidence  be  in  the  voice  of  th6  Son  of  God.  And 
let  us  turn  our  faces  towards  the  wind,  and  say,  "  O  breath, 
come  from  the  four  winds,  and  breathe  upon  these  slain,  that 
they  may  live !  " 


The  Abundant  Entrance.  365 

And  the  following  must  have  been  effective  : 

ENTERING  THE   PORT. 

"  For  so  an  entrance  shall  be  ministered  unto  you  abundantly 
into  the  everlasting  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ."  2  Pet.  i.  11.  This  language  seems  to  be  borrowed 
from  the  case  of  a  ship  bringing  her  j^assengers  to  port  on  a 
pleasant  afternoon,  her  sails  all  white  and  whole,  and  her  flags 
majestically  waving  in  the  breeze  ;  while  the  relatives  of  those 
on  board  ascend  the  high  places,  to  see  their  brothers  and  their 
sisters  returning  home  in  safety  from  the  stormy  main.  How 
pleasant  to  a  man  who  is  about  to  emigrate  to  the  new  world, 
America,  when  he  meets  with  some  one  that  has  been  there,  and 
who  is  well  acquainted  with  the  coast,  knows  the  best  landing- 
place,  and  will  accompany  him  on  his  passage.  "  Though  I 
walk  through  the  valley  and  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no 
evil :  for  thou  art  with  me ;  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  they  comfort 
me."  He  who  passed  through  death  himself,  and  is  Lord  of  the 
sea,  is  our  High-priest ;  and,  with  his  priestly  vestments  on,  he 
will  stand  in  Jordan's  current  till  the  feeblest  in  all  the  tribes 
shall  be  safely  landed  on  Canaan's  shore.  How  delightful  must 
be  the  feelings  of  the  dying  Christian,  the  testimony  of  whose 
conscience  unites  with  the  witness  of  the  Spirit,  to  assure  him 
that  Jesus  has  paid  his  fare  :  and  who  knows  he  carries  in  his 
hand  the  white  stone  with  the  new  name,  to  be  exhibited  on  the 
pier-head,  the  other  side,  hard  by  his  Father's  house.  This  is 
an  abundant  entrance,  on  a  fair  day,  over  a  fine  sea,  with  a  pleas- 
ant breeze  swelling  every  sail.  "  Now  lettest  thou  thy  servant 
depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation." 

O  how  different  the  entrance  ministered  to  the  careless  pro- 
fessor— the  fruitless  and  idle — who  keeps  his  hand  in  his  bosom, 
or  leaning  upon  his  implements  !  Though  he  may  reach  the 
shore  with  his  life,  it  will  be  at  midnight,  surrounded  by  roaring 
tempests,  full  of  bitter  remembrances  and  most  tormenting  fears. 
Yet,  with  tattered  sails  and  broken  ropes,  peradventure  he  may 
gain  the  port ;  "  for  the  Lord  is  good,  and  His  mercy  endureth 
for  ever."  But  who  shall  describe  the  condition  of  the  ungodly, 
driven  out  to  sea  in  all  their  wickedness ;  not  even  allowed  a 
quarantine  within  sight  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  but  obliged 


^66    Pulpit  Monogi'aplis :  Christmas  Evans. 

to  drift  about,  dismantled  and  disabled,  amid  the  darkness  of 
eternal  storms  !  Oh !  to  be  forced  from  their  moorings  at  mid- 
night, when  they  cannot  see  a  handbreath  before  them ;  the 
thunders  rolling;  the  lightnings  flashing;  strange  voices  of 
wrath  mingling  with  every  blast ;  and  the  great  bell  of  eternity 
tolling  a  funeral  knell  for  the  lost  soul,  through  all  its  dismal, 
and  solitary,  and  everlasting  voyage  !  Let  us  flee  for  refuge,  to 
lay  hold  on  the  hope  set  before  us,  which  hoj)e  is  as  an  anchor 
of  the  soul,  sure  and  steadfast,  grasping  the  Rock  of  Ages  with- 
in the  vail ! 

THE   BEAM. 

Then  I  saw  the  beam  of  a  great  scale ;  one  end  descending  to 
the  abyss,  borne  down  by  the  power  of  the  atonement ;  the  other 
ascending  to  the  heaven  of  heavens,  and  lifting  up  the  prisoners 
of  the  tomb.  Wonderful  scheme !  Christ  condemned  for  our 
justification ;  forsaken  of  His  Father,  that  we  might  enjoy  His 
fellowship ;  passing  under  the  curse  of  the  law,  to  bear  it  away 
from  the  believer  for  ever !  This  is  the  great  scale  of  redemp- 
tion. As  one  end  of  the  beam  falls  under  the  load  of  our  sins, 
which  were  laid  on  Christ ;  the  other  rises,  bearing  the  basket 
of  mercy,  full  of  pardons,  and  blessings,  and  hopes.  "  He  who 
knew  no  sin  was  made  sin  for  us  " — that  is  His  end  of  the  beam ; 
"  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Him  " — 
this  is  ours.  "  Though  he  was  rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  he  became 
poor  " — there  goes  his  end  down  ;  "  that  we,  through  his  pov- 
erty, might  be  rich  " — here  comes  ours  up. 

From  these  extracts  it  will  be  seen  that  Christmas  Evans 
excelled  in  the  use  of  parable  in  the  pulpit.  Sometimes  he 
"VNTOught  this  mine  like  a  very  Bunyan,  and  we  believe  no 
pubhshed  accounts  of  these  sermons  in  Welsh,  and  certain- 
ly none  that  we  have  found  translated  into  EngHsh,  give  any 
idea  of  his  power.  With  what  amazing  effect  some  of  his 
sermons  would  teU  on  the  vast  audiences  which  in  these 
days  gather  together  in  London,  and  in  our  great  towns ! 
This  method  of  instruction  is  now  usually  regarded  as  in 
bad  taste  ;  it  does  not  seem  to  be  sanctioned  by  the  great 


His  PreacJiing.  367 

rules  and  masters  of  oratorical  art.  If  a  man  could  create 
a  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  recite  it,  it  would  be  found  to  be  a 
very  doubtful  article  by  the  rhetorical  sanhediim.  Yet  our 
Lord  used  this  very  method,  and  without  using  some  such 
method — anecdote  or  illustration — it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  strong  hold  can  be  had  of  the  lower  orders  of  mind. 
Our  preacher  entered  into  the  spirit  of  Scripture  ^Darable 
and  narrative.  One  of  the  most  famous  of  his  discourses 
is  that  on  the  Demoniac  of  Gadara  ;  some  of  our  readers 
will  be  shocked  to  know  that  in  the  course  of  some  of  his 
descriptions  in  it  he  convulsed  his  audience  with  laughter 
in  the  commencement.  Well,  he  need  not  be  imitated 
there ;  but  he  held  it  sufficiently  subdued  before  the  close, 
and  an  alternation  of  tears  and  raptures  not  only  testified  to 
his  powers  but  to  his  skill  in  givmg  a  reading  of  the  nar- 
rative. For  the  purpose  of  producing  effect, — and  we  mean 
by  effect,  visible  results  in  crushed  and  humble  hearts,  and 
transformed  lives, — it  would  be  a  curious  thing  to  try  in 
England  the  preaching  of  some  of  the  great  "Welshman's 
sermons.  What  would  be  the  effect  upon  any  audience  of 
that  great  picture  of  the  Churchyard- World,  and  the  mighty 
controvery  between  Justice  and  Mercy  ?  Let  it  be  admitted 
that  there  are  some  things  in  it,  perhaps  many,  that  it 
would  not  demand  a  severe  taste  to  expel  from  the  j)icture, 
but  take  it  as  the  broad,  bold  painting  of  a  man  not  highly 
educated, — indeed,  highly  educated  men,  as  we  have  said, 
could  not  perform  such  things,  a  highly  educated  man  could 
never  have  written  the  Pilgrim's  Progress — ^let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  delivered  to  men,  perhaps  we  should  say 
rather  educated  than  instructed  ;  men  iUiterate  in  aU  things 
except  the  Bible.  We  ourselves  have  in  som.e  very  large 
congregations  tried  the  preaching  of  one  of  the  most  famous 
of  Evan's  sermons,  "  The  Spirit  walking  in  dry  places,  seek- 
ing rest  and  finding  none  " — we  find  it  in  Mr.  Cross's  vol- 
ume ;  but  our  version  of  it  was  received  fi'om  the  lips  of 


^68     Piil;pit  Monograms :  Christmas  Evans. 

those  who  listened  to  it  among  the  mountains  of  Wales. 
The  version  in  the  volame  referred  to  seems  to  be  but  a 
poor  caricature  of  the  reality.  Christmas  Evan's  preach- 
ing was  by  no  means  defective  in  the  bone  and  muscle  of 
thought  and  pulpit  arrangement ;  but  no  doubt  herein  lay 
his  great  forte  and  power, — he  could  paint  soul-subduing 
pictures.  They  were  not  pieces  of  mere  word-painting, 
they  were  bathed  in  emotion,  they  were  penetrated  by  deep 
knowledge  of  the  human  heart.  He  went  into  the  pulpit 
mighty,  from  lonely  wrestlings  with  God  in  mountain  trav- 
ellings ;  he  went  among  his  fellow  men,  his  audiences, 
strong  in  his  faith  in  the  reaHty  of  those  covenants  wdth 
God,  whose  history  and  character  we  have  already  present- 
ed to  our  readers.  There  was  much  in  his  preaching  of  that 
order  which  is  so  mighty  in  speech,  but  which  loses  so  much, 
or  which  seems  to  acquire  such  additional  coarseness,  when 
it  is  presented  to  the  eye.  Preachers  now  live  too  much 
in  the  presence  of  published  sermons,  to  be  in  the  high- 
est degree  effective.  He  who  thinks  of  the  printing  press 
cannot  abandon  himseK.  He  who  uses  his  notes  slavishly 
cannot  abandon  himself  ;  and  without  abandonment,  that 
is  fOrgetfulness,  what  is  oratory  ?  what  is  action  ?  what  is 
passion?  If  we  were  asked  what  are  the  two  greatest 
human  aids  to  pulpit  power,  we  should  say  Self-Possession 
and  Self-Abandonment ;  and  the  two  are  perfectly  compat- 
ible ;  and  in  the  pulpit  the  one  is  never  powerful  without 
the  other.  Knowledge,  BeHef,  Preparation,  these  give  self- 
possession  ;  and  Earnestness  and  Unconsciousness,  these 
give  self-abandonment.  The  first  without  the  last  may  make 
a  preacher  hke  a  stony  pillar,  covered  with  runes  and  hie- 
roglyphics ;  and  the  last  without  the  first  may  make  a  mere 
fanatic,  with  a  torrent  of  speech,  plunged  lawlessly  and 
disgracefully  abroad.  The  two  in  combination  in  a  noble 
man  and  teacher  become  sublime.  Perhaps  they  reached 
their  highest  realization  among  us  in  Robertson  of  Brighton. 


His  Preaching.  369 

In  another,  and  in  a  different  department,  not  inferior 
order,  of  mind,  tliey  were  nobly  realized  in  the  subject  of 
this  sketch. 

It  must  have  been,  one  thinks,  a  grand  thing  to  have 
heard  Christmas  Evans  ;  the  extracts  from  his  journal — the 
story  they  teU  of  his  devout  and  rapt  communions  of  soul 
with  God  among  the  mountains,  the  bare  and  solitary  hills 
— ^reveal  sufficiently  how  in  himself  the  preacher  was  made. 
When  he  came  into  the  pulpit  his  soul  kindled  and  inflamed 
by  the  hve  coals  from  the  altar.  Some  men  of  his  own 
country  imitated  him,  of  course — imitations  are  always  lu- 
dicrous, some  of  these  were  especially  so.  There  was,  says 
one  of  his  biographers,  the  shrug,  the  shake  of  the  head, 
the  hurried  undertoned  exclamation  "  Bendigedig,"  etc.  etc., 
always  reminding  us,  by  verifying  it,  of  Dr.  Parr's  descrip- 
tion of  the  iniitators  of  Johnson,  "  They  had  the  nodosities 
of  the  oak  without  its  vigor,  and  the  contortions  of  the  sibyl 
without  her  inspiration."  It  was  not  so  with  him,  he  had 
rare,  highly  spiritual,  and  gifted  sympathies,  but  even  in 
his  very  colloquies  in  the  pulpit  there  was  a  wing  and  sweep 
of  ample  majesty.  He  preached  often  amidst  scenes  of 
wildness  and  beauty,  in  romantic  dells,  or  on  mountain 
sides  and  slopes  amidst  the  summer  hush  of  crags  and 
brooks,  all  ministering,  it  may  be  thought,  to  the  impres- 
sion of  the  whole  scene,  or  it  was  in  rude  and  unadorned 
mountain  chapels  altogether  alien  from  the  aesthetics  so 
charming  to  modern  religious  sensibihties,  but  he  never 
lowered  his  tone,  liis  language  was  always  intelligible,  but 
both  it  and  the  imagery  he  employed,  even  when  some  cir- 
cumstances gave  to  it  a  homely  light  and  play,  always 
ascended ;  he  knew  the  workings  of  the  heart  and  knew . 
how  to  lay  his  finger  impressively  upon  all  its  movements, 
and  every  kind  of  sympathy  attested  his  power.  It  is  a 
great  thing  to  bear  men's  spirits  along  through  the  subHme 
reaches  and  avenues  of  thought  and  emotion,  and  majesty 


370    Pulpit  Monographs :  Christmas  Evans. 

and  sublimity  seem  to  have  been  the  common  moods  of  his 
mind  ;  never  was  his  speech  or  his  puljDit  hke  a  Gilboa  on 
which  there  was  no  dew^  He  gave  it  as  his  advice  to  a 
young  preacher,  "Never  raise  the  voice  while  the  heart  is 
dry,  let  the  heart  and  affections  shout  first,  let  it  commence 
within."  A  man  who  could  say  "hundreds  of  prayers  bub- 
ble from  the  fountain  of  my  mind,"  what  sort  of  preacher 
was  he  likely  to  make  ?  he  "  mused  and  the  fire  burned," 
like  the  smith  who  blows  upon  the  furnace  until  the  iron  is 
red  hot,  and  then  strikes  on  the  anvil  till  the  Sjoarks  fly  aU 
around  him,  so  he  preached.  His  words  and  thoughts  be- 
came radiant  with  fire  and  metaphor,  they  flew  forth  rich, 
bright,  glowing,  like  some  rich  metal  in  ethereal  flame  ;  as 
we  have  said,  it  was  the  nature  and  habit  of  his  mind  to 
embody  and  impersonate,  attributes  and  quahties  took  the 
shape  and  form  of  persons,  he  seemed  to* enter  mystic 
abodes  and  not  to  talk  of  things  as  a  metaphysician  or  a 
theologian,  but  as  a  spectator  or  actor.  The  magnificencies 
of  nature  crowded  round  him,  bowing  in  homage  as  he  se- 
lected from  them  to  adorn  or  illustrate  his  theme ;  aU 
things  beautiful  and  splendid,  all  things  fi-esh  and  young, 
all  things  old  and  venerable  ;  reading  his  discourses,  for  in- 
stance the  Hind  of  the  Morning^  we  are  astounded  at  the 
prodigality  and  the  unity  of  the  imagination,  the  coherency 
with  which  the  fancies  range  themselves  as  gems  round 
some  central  truth,  drinking  and  reflecting  its  corusca- 
tions. Astounded  were  the  people  who  heard  ;  it  was  min- 
strelsy even  more  than  oratory,  the  truths  were  old  and 
common,  there  was  no  fine  discrimination,  and  subtle  touch 
of  expression,  as  in  Williams,  and  there  was  no  personal 
« majesty  and  dignity  or  sonorous  swell  of  the  pomp  of 
words,  as  in  John  Ehas,  but  it  was  more,  it  was  the  wing 
of  prophecy  and  poetry,  it  was  the  rapture  of  the  seer  or 
the  bard,  he  called  up  image  after  image,  grouped  them, 
made  them  speak  and  testify ;  laden  by  grand  and  over- 


Another  Covenant  with  God. 


371 


whelming  feelings,  lie  bore  the  people  v/ith  him  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  or  across  the  delectable 
moimtains  ;  there  is  a  spell  in  thought,  there  is  a  spell  in 
felicitous  language,  but  when  to  these  are  added  the  vision 
which  calls  up  sleei3ing  terror,  the  imagination  which  makes 
living  nature  yet  more  ahve,  and  brings  the  solemn  or  the 
dreadful  people  of  the  Book  of  God,  to  our  home  and  life 
of  to-day,  how  terribly  majestic  the  preacher  becomes. 

Late  in  life  Mr.  Evans  found  himself  much  troubled,  and, 
in  consequence  of  some  affahs  in  connection  with  his  chapel, 
even  in  danger  of  legal  prosecution  ;  but  his  case  in  this 
matter  he  very  simply  carried  to  the  Lord  in  words  of  great 
simphcity  and  faith,  which,  however,  we  cannot  quote.  And 
he  made  another  covenant  with  God  in  some  other  circum- 
stances of  sadness.  On  his  return  from  the  village  of  Tong- 
wynlais,  in  the  vale  of  the  Taff,  coming  over  the  mountain 
late  in  the  evening,  he  says  : 

"  On  the  Caerphilly  Mountain,  the  spirit  of  prayer  fell  upon 
me  as  it  had  once  (when  about  to  leave)  in  Anglesea.  I  wept 
and  supplicated,  and  gave  myself  to  Christ.  I  wept  long,  and 
besought  Jesus  Christ,  and  my  heart  poured  forth  the  following 
requests  before  Him  on  the  mountain.  I  had  the  experience  of 
great  nearness  to  Him,  as  though  he  had  been  by  my  side,  and 
my  mind  was  filled  with  great  confidence  that  He  heard  me,  for 
the  sake  of  all  the  merits  that  are  in  His  name." 

This  is  the  covenant  on  the  Caerphilly  Mountain  ;  it  was  like 
Moriah  to  Abraham : 

1.  "  Give  me  the  favor  of  being  led  according  to  thy  will,  by 
the  intimations  of  thy  providence  and  word,  and  the  inclination 
of  my  mind  by  the  Spirit,  for  the  sake  of  thine  infinitely  pre- 
cious blood.     Amen.     C.  E. 

2.  "Grant  that,  if  I  am  to  leave  Caerphilly,  the  gale  of  reli- 
gious revival  vouchsafed  to  me  there,  may  follow  me  to  Cardiff^, 
for  thy  great  name's  sake.     Amen.     C.  E. 

3.  "  Bless  bitter  things  to  brighten  (burnish)  me,  and  to  re- 


372     Pulpit  Monographs :  Christmas  Evans. 

vive  me  more  and  more ;  not  to  depress  and  deaden  me.     Amen. 
C.  E. 

4.  "  Permit  me  not  to  be  trampled  under  foot  by  proud  men, 
for  tliy  goodness'  sake.     Amen.     C.  E. 

5.  "  Grant  unto  me  tlie  incalculable  favor  of  being,  in  thy 
hand,  the  means  of  calling  sinners  unto  thee,  and  of  edifying 
saints,  whithersoever  thou  sendest  me,  for  thy  name's  sake. 
Amen.     C.  E. 

6.  "  If  I  am  to  stay  at  Caerphilly,  give  me  a  token  as  thou 
didst  to  Gideon  of  old,  by  removing  the  things  that  discourage 
me,  and  that  hinder  the  continuance  of  prosi>erity  there.  Amen. 
C.  E. 

7.  "  May  it  please  the  Son  of  Glory  and  Head  of  the  Church 
to  preserve  the  ark  of  thy  cause,  which  is  thy  own,  in  Anglesea 
and  at  Caerphilly,  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Philistines  ; 
reject  it  not,  but  speedily  deliver  it,  and  cause  thy  face  to  shine 
upon  it ;  and  by  thy  Spirit,  and  word,  and  providence,  bring 
about  in  those  neighborhoods  and  churches,  such  changes  in  the 
officers  (of  the  churches),  and  such  measures  as  will  go  to  rem- 
edy the  sources  of  evil  to  the  great  cause  which  thou  diedst  to 
establish  in  our  world ;  and  by  dispersing  thoee  who  delight  in 
war ;  and  by  closing  the  mouths  of  those  that  subvert.  Amen. 
C.  E. 

8.  "  May  it  please  thee  to  give  me  tokens  of  the  way  before  I 
go  to  Liverpool,  and  thence  to  Anglesea,  if  it  be  thy  will  that  I 
should  go  thither  this  year.    Amen.     C.  E. 

9.  "  Grant  me  protection  under  the  shade  of  the  fellow-feeling 
which  thou  dost  cherish  towards  those  that  are  tempted,  and 
the  boundless  power  thou  possessest  for  that  pui-pose.  Amen. 
C.  E. 

10.  "  Accept  my  thanksgiving  a  hundred  millions  of  times, 
for  that  thou  hast  not  hitherto  thrown  me  out  of  thy  hand,  as  a 
dark  star,  or  a  vessel  in  which  thou  hadst  no  delight ;  and  per- 
mit not  my  life  to  survive  my  usefulness.  Amen.  C.  E. — I 
thank  thee  for  not  abandoning  me  as  a  prey  to  any  foe.  Blessed 
be  thy  name. 

11.  "  For  the  sake  of  thine  infinite  merits,  subject  not  thy  ser- 
vant under  the  tramplings  of  pride  and  injustice,  riches,  and 


Tlie  Last  Sermon.  273 

(worldly)  greatness ;  or  tlie  selfish  oppression  of  any  man ;  but 
conceal  me  in  the  secret  place  of  thy  countenance  from  the  strife 
of  tongues.     Amen.     C.  E. 

12.  "Help  me  to  wait  patiently  for  the  fulfilment  of  these 
things,  that  I  may  not  lose  self-possession,  yield  to  anger,  and 
speak  unadvisedly  with  my  lips,  as  Moses.  Preserve  my  heart 
from  sinking,  that  I  may  look  for  new  strength  from  Zion. 
Amen.     C.  E. 

13.  "Assist  me  to  look  unto  thee  for  the  necessaries  of  life; 
let  thy  goodness  and  mercy  follow  me  all  the  days  of  my  life. 
And  as  it  hath  pleased  thee  to  put  great  honor  upon  me,  in  the 
great  success  with  which  my  ministry  was  blessed  at  Caerphilly, 
after  the  pelting  of  the  storm  upon  me  in  Anglesea,  grant  that 
this  honor  may  continue  to  follow  me  to  the  end  of  my  days, 
even  as  thou  didst  to  thy  servant  Job. 

14.  "  Let  this  covenant  continue  as  a  covenant  of  salt,  until  I 
come  unto  thee  to  eternity.  I  beseech  thy  help  to  resign  myself 
entirely  unto  thee  and  thy  will.  I  beseech  thee  to  take  my  heart, 
and  write  upon  it  a  reverence  to  thee  with  thine  own  hand, 
whose  inscription  neither  time  nor  eternity  can  obliterate.  Oh, 
that  the  remainder  of  my  sermons  may  be  taken  by  thyself  out  of 
my  lips  !  and  those  that  I  am  engaged  in  writing  (out),  may 
they  bring  glory  to  thee,  and  not  to  me.  To  thee  I  dedicate 
them.  If  anjrthing  be  to  thy  glory,  and  the  service  of  thy  king- 
dom, take  charge  of  it  and  make  it  known  to  men,  otherwise 
let  it  perish  even  as  the  "  drop  of  a  bucket "  in  the  heat  of 
Africa.  O  grant  that  a  drop  of  that  water,  which  thou  alone 
canst  impart,  and  "  which  springeth  up  into  everlasting  life," 
may  run  through  all  my  sermons.  In  this  my  last  covenant  with 
thee  upon  earth,  I  put  myself,  my  wife  and  the  churches  to 
which  I  have  been  administering.  I  commit  all  to  the  protec- 
tion of  thy  grace. 

15.  "  Let  this  covenant  continue  when  I  am  ill,  as  well  as  when 
I  am  in  health,  and  in  all  (possible)  circumstances ;  for  thou  hast 
conquered  the  world ;  and  fulfilled  the  law^ ;  hast  brought  in  the 
justifying  righteousness ;  hast  swallowed  up  death  in  victory  ; 
and  hast  now  in  thy  hands  all  authority  in  heaven  and  on  the 
earth.     For  the  sake  of  thy  most  precious  blood,  and  perfect 


274    Pid'pit  Monograj^lm :  CTiristmas  JEvans. 

rigliteousness,  register  this  covenant  in  tlie  court  of  tlie  remem- 
brance of  thy  pardoning  mercy  ;  put  to  it  thy  name  in  which  I 
belieye,  and  I  put  my  unworthy  name  to  it  to-day,  with  my 
mortal  hand.     Amen.  Christmas  Evams." 

"  April,  1829. 

"We  musl}  draw  our  sketcli  to  a  close.  Mr  Evans  almost 
died  in  the  pulpit,  coming  down  the  pulpit  stairs  in  Swansea, 
on  Monday,  July  14th,  1838  ;  he  said  in  English  loud 
enough  to  be  heard  by  some  present,  "  This  is  my  last  ser- 
mon" and  it  was  so.  He  died  in  the  triuinphant  manner 
which  some  are  so  glad  to  regard  as  the  highest  evidence 
of  the  divine  life  in  the  soul.  "  Preach  Christ  to  the  people, 
brethren,"  he  said  to  the  ministers  standing  round  his  bed  ; 
"  look  at  me  in  myseK,  I  am  nothing  but  ruin,  but  look  at 
me  in  Chiist,  I  am  heaven  and  salvation."  He  added  in  a 
joyous  strain  four  lines  of  a  Welsh  hymn,  then  waving  his  • 
hand,  he  said  in  English,  '^  Good-by,  drive  on  !"  Was  it 
another  instance  of  the  labor  of  life  pervading  by  its  master- 
idea  the  hour  of  death  ?  For  upwards  of  twenty  years  the 
one-eyed  man  "  of  Anglesea  "  ("  an  eye,  sir,"  said  Eobert 
Hall  of  that  one  eye,  "  that  might  Hght  an  army  through  a 
wilderness  ") — ^for  upwards  of  twenty  years,  as  he  had  gone 
to  and  fro,  his  friends  had  given  him  a  gig  that  he  might  go 
at  his  ease  in  his  own  way,  with  a  horse  which  became  very 
old  in  his  master's  service  called  Jack.  He  knew  from  a 
distance  the  very  tones  of  his  voice  ;  with  him  Christmas 
Evans  in  long  solitary  journeys  held  many  a  long  conversa- 
tion ;  the  horse  opened  his  ears  the  moment  his  master  be- 
gan to  speak,  made  a  kind  of  neighing  reply  ;  then  the 
rider  said,  as  he  often  did,  "  Jack  bach,  we  have  only  to 
cross  one  low  mountain  again,  and  there  will  be  capital 
oats,  excellent  water,  and  a  warm  stable."  Thus,  while  he 
was  dying,  old  mountain  days  came  over  his  memory. 
"Good-bye,"  said  he,  "drive  on!" — they  were  his  last 
words,  he  sank  into  a  calm  sleep  and  woke  no  more. 


IX. 

On   the    Formation   of   Style   for 
Pulpit  Composition. 


HAVE  hitherto  kept  your  attention  with  re- 
marks upon  the  pulpit  in  general,  and  its  vari- 
ous forms,  with  some  illustrations  of  its  power — 
^  all  tending  to  show  that  the  pulpit  has  been  a 
force  in  most  ages.  I  would  now  remark  upon  the  style 
best  adapted  for  usefulness  in  the  pulpit.  If  it  is  a  power  ; 
how  shall  we  use  the  power  ? 

And  first,  we  must  remember  that  the  efficacy  of  aU 
education  and  hint  must  depend  on  the  man  within, 

I  have  already  said  something  on  words  ;  no  doubt  a 
soul  on  fire  is  likely  to  command  the  words  as  most  likely 
to  be  the  fuel  to  its  intensity.  But,  first  of  all,  accus- 
tom your  mind  to  the  mental  association  of  words  most 
suited  to  express  your  meaning,  furnish  your  memoiy  with 
words  —  forcible  words,  sonorous  words,  and  magnetic 
words — words  which  shall  be  a  key  to  the  mind  and  to  the 
heart,  to  throw  open  the  flood  gates  and  let  the  tides  roll  in 
on  the  thought-gates,  and  to  obtain  entrance  for  ideas. 
Accustom  yourselves  to  the  study  of  words,  take  them  to 
pieces  and  hold  them  up  to  the  light.  The  preacher  must 
do  more  than  use  words  ;  as  a  painter  he  must  do  far  more 


376  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

than  paint.  I  have  already  said  he  deals  with  words  ; 
painting  may  be  the  language  fitting  to  employ  when  we 
only  seek  to  convey  images — conceptions  ;  but  this  would 
very  feebly  represent  the  work  of  the  minister  ;  it  is  to 
touch  souls — it  is  to  awaken  souls,  that  they  may  be  con- 
soled, that  they  may  be  enhghtened  ;  and  oratory  is  the 
power  of  words.  If  you  believe  in  the  power  of  words, 
"  they  are  the  great  and  wide  sea  in  which  are  things  in- 
numerable, both  small  and  great  beasfcs,  on  which  also  go 
the  ships  " — great  ideas,  but  especially  gran-d  emotions — 
which  enter  and  bear  their  freightage  into  human  souls.  I 
have  always  beheved  in  the  might  of  words  ;  by  them,  in 
all  ages,  God  has  effected  His  most  wonderful  things  ; 
through  them  prophets  and  apostles,  through  them  poets 
and  seers,  have  sjpoken,  and  through  them  God  speaks  now. 
They  have  wonderful  power  ;  through  them  the  thunders  of 
judgment  have  rolled  ;  through  them  conviction  has  darted 
its  hghtnings  ;  through  them  the  genial  rays  of  consola- 
tion have  fallen.  The  minister  is  a  man  who  holds  up  a 
form  of  sound  words  as  a  glass  in  which  the  multitude 
may  see  ;  who  uses  cunning,  studied,  and  interpretating 
words  that  the  people  may  feel.  He  holds  and  chains  his 
passing  emotions,  and  binds  them  in  chains  of  speech  to 
effect  power  over  souls.  For  this  I  am  a  minister  ;  for 
this  you  are  to  be  ministers.  We  must  have  a  sovereign 
behef  in  our  work,  and  in  the  power  of  using  words,  so 
that  they  become  reahties.  If  it  is  not  this,  what  is  the 
ministry?  "Of  the  man,"  says  Dr.  Guthrie,  "who  has 
adopted  the  Church  as  a  profession,  as  other  men  adopt 
the  law,  the  army,  or  the  navy,  and  goes  through  the 
routine  of  its  duties  with  the  coldness  of  a  mere  official ; 
filled  by  him,  the  pulpit  seems  filled  with  the  ghastly  form 
of  a  skeleton,  that  in  its  cold  and  bony  fingers  holds  a  burn- 
ing lamp." 

And  here  let  me  condemn  a  maxim  which  underlies  the 


Look  High  that  you  may  Aim  High,      yj^ 

whole  Pagan  pliilosopliy,  ancient  and  modem — '^Nil  ad- 
miran  " — "  Admire  nothing !  "  Here  is  the  spirit  of  the 
sneerer,  as  Horace  says  again — "  Gum  risu  miror  " — "  I 
never  admire,  but  I  sneer."  Wonder  at  nothing !  Never 
be  excited  to  tones  or  thoughts  of  rapture,  or  of  reverence; 
it  is  worthy  of  a  Pagan  that  sentiment.  He  who  never  ad- 
mires, can  never  adore.  That  expression  is  like  that  of  a 
stern  distracted  worldling,  to  whom  life  and  time  brought 
no  relief,  and  no  rest.  I  should  say  exactly  the  reverse. 
I  should  say  keep  the  pores  of  your  spirit  perpetually  open 
to  receive  the  health,  the  strength,  and  the  excitement  of 
aU  things  ;  they  are  all  shadows  cast  b}^  invisible  presences. 
Therefore,  go  forth;  and  as  you  receive  and  retain,  rise 
rather  to  the  divine  heights  of  that  amazement  which  com- 
pelled bards  and  philosophers  to  kindle  with  amazement, 
as  they  were  able  to  say — "  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy 
works.  Lord  God  Almighty." 

First  then,  look  above,  have  high  models  of  mediocrity. 
"  Neither  men,  nor  gods,  nor  columns  have  allowed  indiffer- 
ent poets  to  exist."  Surely,  this  must  especially  be  said  of 
the  preacher.  Is  not  this  in  the  spirit  of  Him  who  cast 
himself  into  His  work,  exclaiming  "  One  thing  I  do  "  ?  It 
is  assuredly  true  that  in  the  great  divine  work  of  preaching, 
not  less  than  in  any  more  human  work,  art  must  combine 
with  nature.  "It  has  been,"  says  Horace,  "a  question 
whether  the  noble  work  was  produced  by  nature,  or  by 
art."  And  he  says,  "  I  neither  see  what  study  without  a 
rich  natural  voice,  nor  what  an  uncultivated  genius  can 
avail ;  so  much  does  one  thing  require  the  aid  of  the  other, 
and  so  mutually  do  they  conspire  together."  You  know 
when  a  brisk  student  said  to  Mr.  Opie,  the  painter,  "  May 
I  ask  you  what  you  mix  your  colors  with  ?  "  "  With  brains, 
sir,"  was  the  gruff  reply  of  the  painter  ;  and  we  are  to  ex- 
pect that  the  soul,  without  enthusiasm,  will,  in  the  sacred 
walk  of  the  ministry,  as  in  all  else,  be  but  a  sorry  and  a 


378  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

poor  thing.  I  must  not  be  indifferent.  Here  is  the  foun- 
dation of  success — the  spring  and  fount  of  all  enthusiasm." 

There  was  a  character  Horace  ridiculed  almost  in  the 
same  sentence — in  the  well-known  paragraph — "  Qui  nescU, 
versics  tamen  audetji7igere" — "He  knows  nothing,  and  yet 
he  dares  to  make  verses."  How  much  more  may  it  excite 
one's  contempt  when  he  who  knows  nothing  dai'es  to 
preach.  He  who  knows  not  the  use  of  arms,  does  not 
enter  the  field.  He  who  does  not  know  chess  never  chal- 
lenges the  players^  the  unskilful  does  not  offer  himself  for 
a  combat  or  a  game,  lest  he  raise  a  laugh;  yet  many  offer 
themselves  to  the  pulpit  who  know  nothing- — ignorant  of 
everything,  they  yet  dare  to  preach.  As  the  bishop,  al- 
ready quoted,  said  to  the  young  ecclesiastic  who  sought 
ordination,  "  I  do  not  forbid  you  to  preach,  but  Nature 
does." 

We  will  conceive  the  young  man  then  settled.*  Yes,  he 
has  now  to  begin  to  preach  indeed;  he  has  delivered  the 
two  or  three  successful  discourses,  and  he  looks  with  a 
somewhat  awe-stricken  eye  at  the  diminishing  number  of 
notes  of  old  discourses.  He  has  to  begin  to  preach  in 
earnest;  the  pulse  of  excitement  is  subdued;  his  people 
are  now  preparing  to  hsten  more  quietly,  some  critically, 
many  hungrily,  some  requiring  the  strong  hand  that  in 
ministering  to  thought  shall  brush  away  their  doubts,  and 
many  yearning  for  the  bread  of  life,  longing  for  refresh- 
ment, and  for  food.  It  is  a  state  demanding  all  our  sym- 
pathy. How  will  our  young  fi'iend  fulfil  their  demands  ? 
Farmers  wHl  tell  you  there  are  three  methods  of  sowing: 
there  is  the  drilling,  dibbling,  and  hroadcast ;  so  there  are 
three  kinds  of  preaching;  there  is  drilling,  that  is  the  siu^e 
method,  that  is  the  finished,   and  even  the  ornate  style, 

*  Not  an  uninstructive  book  for  a  young  minister  is  the  Manse 
of  MasUand,  it  has  received  the  wai-m  commendation  of  Dr.  Thirl- 
wall.  Bishop  of  St.  David's. 


Watts^s  Pulpit  Portraits  of  Tyro^  etc.      379 

which  regulates  the  quantity  of  seed  sown,  and  sows 
equally  over  the  whole  field;  there  is  dibbling,  in  this  you 
get  very  close  to  your  soil,  and  if  your  soil  is  heavy,  it  is 
advisedly  apphed  to  their  wants;  but,  then,  there  is  the 
broadcast,  it  is  quick,  it  is  not  so  dependent  on  the 
weather,  it  does  not  want  either  a  very  pui^e  or  clear 
land. 

Dr.  Watts  sketches  the  hkeness  of  Tyro,  who  flourishes 
his  introduction,  after  announcing  his  text,  tells  you  how 
many  senses  the  chief  word  in  the  text  has,  first  among  the 
Greek  heathen  writers,  and  then  in  the  New  Testament, 
citing  chapters  and  texts  exactly,  and  making  you  under- 
stand them  all  before  he  says  a  word  about  his  own;  he 
consults  all  the  critics,  and  goes  through  grammatical  exer- 
cises; he  spends  so  much  time  in  this  exercise,  that  he  has 
to  finish  his  work,  and  to  do  nothing;  like. a  general  who 
draws  his  lines  of  circumvallation  in  such  form,  and  so 
nicely,  according  to  the  rules  of  art,  that  the  season  was 
spent,  and  he  is  obhged  to  retke  without  any  execution 
done  on  the  town.* 

Polyramus,  is  another  kind  of  preacher,  one  of  those 
who  mince  their  subject  too  small;  he  is,  no  doubt,  one  of 
a  race  of  men  almost  gone;  their  firstlies,  and  secondlies, 
and  thirdlies,  trod  on  one  another's  heels.  Such  sermons 
are  like  a  hedge  of  thorns — all  stick,  no  bud,  no  leaf,  no 
foHage;  you  can  scarcely  call  it  a  branching  sermon,  there 
is  not  vitality  enough  to  branch.  Divisions,  by  all  means; 
it  is  almost  a  moral  duty  for  a  minister  to  have  divisions, 
but  divisions  making  the  order  of  the  subject  in  the 
preacher's  mind,  not  exhibitiag  its  dryness  and  its  confu- 
sion. 

There  is  another  style  into  which  many  fall,  which  is 

*  See  the  admirable  chapters  on  "  Instruction  by  Preaching/'  in 
that  forgotten  and  neglected  but  invaluable  book,  TUe  Impromment 
of  the  Mind. 


380  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc, 

even  a  very  popular,  and  by  many  regarded  as  quite  a 
desirable  style.  It  is  that  of  the  Harangue — the  long 
declamation.  Fluvio  was  said,  by  Dr.  Watts,  to  preach 
thus:  His  language  flows  smoothly  in  a  long  connection  of 
periods,  and  glides  over  the  ear  like  a  rivulet  of  oil  over 
pohshed  marble,  leaving  no  trace  behind  it.  The  hearer 
has  a  faint  idea  of  the  sweetness  of  what  it  has  heard;  but 
he  has  quite  forgotten  the  sense.  A  gentle  flovring  stream 
of  words  will  not  caU  up  souls  from  their  dangerous  and 
fatal  lethargy,  as  if  a  purling  stream  could  arouse  a  sleep- 
ing conscience. 

These  are  considerations  which  will  compel  you  to 
inquire  what  style  should  be  adopted,  to  seize,  to  inform, 
and  to  impress  the  mind;  the  loose  harangue  must  espe- 
cially injure  the  pulpit.  There  is  a  method  which  carries 
darkness  with  it  rather  than  light,  which  is  more  an  opiate 
than  food.  It  is  well  said  that  you  must  break  the  bread 
of  life  into  pieces  to  feed  children.  Very  wisely  Dr.  Watts 
says: — 

Ask  old  Wheatfield  the  rich  farmer,  ask  Plowdown  your 
neighbour,  or  any  of  his  family,  who  have  sat  all  their  lives 
under  your  ministry,  what  they  know  of  the  common  truths  of 
religion,  or  of  the  special  articles  of  Christianity  ?  Desire  them 
to  tell  you  what  the  Gospel  is,  or  what  is  salvation  ;  what  are 
their  duties  towards  God,  or  what  they  mean  by  religion;  who 
is  Jesus  Christ,  or  what  is  the  meaning  of  His  atonement  or 
redemption  by  His  blood.  Perhaps  you  will  tell  me  yourself, 
that  you  have  very  seldom  entertained  them  with  these  subjects. 
Well,  inquire  of  them  then,  what  is  heaven ;  which  is  the  way 
to  obtain  it ;  or  what  hope  they  have  of  dwelling  there.  In  treat 
them  to  tell  you  wherein  they  have  profited  as  to  holiness  of 
heart  and  life,  or  fitness  for  death.  They  will  soon  make  it  ap- 
pear, by  their  awkward  answers,  that  they  understood  very  Httle 
of  all  your  fine  discourses,  and  those  of  your  predecessor ;  and 
have  made  but  wretched  improvement  of  forty  years'  attendance 
at  church.    They  have  now  and  then  been  pleased  perhaps  with 


Di\  M^All  and  the  Primitive  Methodist.     381 

the  music  of  your  voice,  as  with  the  sound  of  a  sweet  instrument, 
and  they  mistook  that  for  devotion ;  but  their  heads  are  dark 
still,  and  their  hearts  earthly ;  they  are  mere  heathens  with  a 
Christian  name,  and  know  little  more  of  God  than  their  yokes 
of  oxen.  In  short,  Polyramus's  auditors  have  some  confusion 
in  their  knowledge ;  but  Fluvio's  hearers  have  scarce  any  knowl- 
edge at  all. 

It  is  of  this  pompous  verbosity  that  Archbishop  Whately 
remarks  of  some  whom  he  has  known,  and  of  whom  he 
has  heard  it  said  they  had  a  fine  command  of  language, 
that  "it  might,  with  more  correctness,  be  said,  language 
had  command  of  them,  they  only  have  the  same  command 
of  language  that  a  man  has  of  a  horse  that  runs  away  with 
him." 

There  is  the  oil-upon-marble  style  of  preaching,  and  that 
which  may  be  called  the  sling-and-the-stone  style.  Hence 
comes  all  the  misplaced  feeling  often  seen.  "  But  what  is 
he  crying  for  ?"  asked  an  intelligent  hearer,  once,  of  one  of 
these  preachers.  "And  you'd  cry,  too,  if  you  were  up  there 
before  all  those  people  and  nothing  to  say."  A  fastidious 
precision  often  emasculates  sentences  the  most  vigorous  and 
searching  as  they  fall  from  the  tongue.  Dr.  M'All  frequently 
heard,  and  always  delighted  to  hear,  so  we  have  been  told, 
a  weU-known  Primitive-Methodist  preacher.  The  Primitive- 
Methodist,  was  to  be  sure,  not  only  a  mighty  Boanerges,  but 
one  of  the  most  accomphshed  masters  of  the  Enghsh  Ian 

guage  on  its  Saxon  side.     "  Mr. ^,"  said  the  Doctor,  in 

one  of  his  frequent  gracious  fits  of  amiable  and  beautiful  hu- 
mihty,  "  I  wish  I  could  preach  like  you,  sir  ;  but  I  can't ;  God 
does  not  honor  my  preaching  ;  somehow,  I  preach,  and 
preach,  and  the  people  admire,  sir  ;  they  are  all  very  good, 
and  patient,  and  affected,  and  attentive  ;  but  I  don't  hear 
of  souls  saved ;  don't  hear  of  souls  converted,  sir ;  it  is 
hard,  but  God  does  not  honor  my  ministry.  Now  you  have 
your  crowns  of  rejoicings  everywhere.     God  honors  you. 


382  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

sir,  I  wish  I  could  preach  Hke  you."  "  I'll  tell  you  what 
it  is,  Doctor,"  said  the  Primitive,  "  you  see  it  is  just  like 
this,  you  and  I  are  determined  to  hit  somebody,  so  we 
must  get  our  stones  ;  you  look  about,  and  you  find  the 
most  carefully-smoothed  and  most  perfectly  polished  stone, 
even  then,  perhaps,  not  smooth  enough,  and,  being  a  very- 
considerable  lapidary  youi'self,  you  polish  it  and  polish  it, 
and  put  a  most  exquisite  and  beautiful  finish  upon  ifc  ;  well, 
you  see,  when  you  throw  your  stone,  at  most,  it  will  only 
hit  one  person,  and  the  probability  is,  that  it  may  fly  off 
and  hit  nobody,  from  the  very  fineness  of  the  poHshing. 
Now  I  have  no  eye  for  that  kind  of  thing,  and  I  can  do 
nothing  of  that  sort ;  I  can  only  go  down  to  the  seaside 
and  catch  up  a  good  handful  of  stones,  and  throw  them, 
with  what  force  I  can,  right  amongst  the  crowd,  quite 
sure,  that  by  God's  help,  every  stone  has  its  mark  and  hits 
somebody."  The  Primitive-Methodist  very  aptly  discrimi- 
nated two  extreme  styles  of  pulpit  speech  ;  but  we  should 
place  many  and  valuable  styles  between  the  two.  There  is 
nothing  rushing,  reckless,  or  careless — ^nothing  wild,  im- 
passioned or  overflo^ving — on  the  contrary  there  is  nothing 
of  the  force  of  the  rapid  rolling  torrent  of  smooth  and 
finished  elegant  eloquence.  "We  have  invented  a  term  and 
spoken  of  it  as  the  sling-and-stone-style  :  "Moreover,  the 
preacher  sought  out  acceptable  words."  The  stone  is 
selected,  and  carefully  and  thoughtfully  fitted  to  the  sling. 
"That  stone,"  says  the  shnger,  "is  intended  for  that  body," 
and  the  stone  hits.  The  elder  John  Clayton  used  to  say, 
illustrating  the  necessity  of  personal  appeal  to  the  con- 
science, "  A  letter  put  into  the  post  office  without  a  direc- 
tion is  sure  to  reach  nobody." 

The  following,  from  Mr.  Maclaren's  sermons,  are  some  of 
these  sharper  words  and  sentences — very  admirable — ^but 
they  are  i)recious  stones  which  might  be  still  more  sharply 
cut: 


Disorimmation  of  Diction  and  Style.     383 

THE  MODERN  PHABISEE. 

There  is  no  more  contemptible  and  impotent  thing  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  than  morality  divorced  from  love,  and  religious 
thoughts  divorced  from  a  heart  full  of  the  love  of  God.  Quick 
corruption  or  long  decay,  and  in  either  case  death  and  putrefac- 
tion are  the  end  of  it !  You  and  I  need  that  lesson,  my  friends  ; 
it  is  of  no  use  for  us  to  condemn  Pharisees  that  have  been  dead 
and  in  their  graves  for  eighteen  hundred  years  ;  the  same  thing 
besets  us  all;  we  all  of  us  try  to  get  away  from  the  centre,  and 
dwell  contentedly  on  the  surface.  We  are  satisfied  to  take  the 
flowers  and  stick  them  into  our  little  gardens,  without  the  roots 
to  them ;  when  of  course  they  all  die  out ! 

THE   WITNESS   OF   THE   SPIRIT. 

Do  not  think  that  it  cannot  be  genuine  because  it  is  change- 
ful. There  is  a  sun  in  the  heavens,  but  there  are  heavenly  lights 
too  that  wax  and  wane ;  they  are  lights,  they  are  in  the  heavens, 
though  they  change.  You  have  no  reason.  Christian  man,  to  be 
discouraged,  cast  down,  still  less  despondent,  because  you  find 
that  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  changes  and  varies  in  your  heart. 
Do  not  despond  because  it  does.  Watch  it  and  guard  it  lest  it 
do.  Live  in  the  contemplation  of  the  Person  and  the  fact  that 
calls  it  forth,  that  it  may  not.  You  never  will "  brighten  your  evi- 
dences "  by  polishing  at  them.  To  polish  the  mirror  ever  so  as- 
siduously does  not  secure  the  image  of  the  sun  on  its  surface. 
The  only  way  to  do  that  is  to  carry  the  j)oor  bit  of  glass  out 
into  the  sunshine.  It  will  shine  then,  never  fear.  It  is  weary 
work  to  labor  at  self-improvement  with  the  hope  of  drawing 
from  our  own  characters  evidences  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God. 
To  have-the  heart  filled  with  the  light  of  Christ's  love  to  us  is 
the  only  way  to  have  the  whole  being  full  of  light. 

And  this  may  remind  us  that  a  distinction  has  been  drawn 
between  Diction  and  Style  ;  diction  respects  the  grammatical 
qualities  of  the  discourse  ;  style  is  the  soul,  that  which  marks 
and  distinguishes  the  genius  and  the  talent  of  the  preacher  ; 
and  here  the  first  thing  universally  connnendcdis  clearness, 


384  ^^  ^^^  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

perspicuity.  Quintilian  has  said,  "  Care  is  to  be  taken,  not 
that  the  hearer  may  understand  it  if  he  will,  but  that  he 
must  understand  whether  he  will  or  no."  "  I  had  rather," 
says  Dr.  Edwards,  "be  fully  understood  by  ten,  than  ad- 
mired by  ten  thousand."  Without  a  doubt,  clearness  and 
precision  are  not  altogether  an  affair  of  grammar  and  dic- 
tion, a  clear  mind  will  express  itself  clearly,  the  faith  within, 
the  wish  without  will  shine  through  the  words  and  make 
them  a  living  spirit  I  believe  there  is  no  other  so  sure  a 
cause  of  a  most  dark  diction,  or  a  pointless,  powerless  style, 
as  the  having  nothing  to  say  upon  a  subject,  and  no  sub- 
ject to  say  anything  upon  ;  and  yet  being  obHged  to  begin, 
and  go  on,  and  talk  for  an  hour — hunting  after  a  text ; 
when  found,  seeing  it,  not  bright  and  clear,  but  like  the 
hull  of  a  vessel  faintly  discerned  through  a  fog.  What  can 
be  expected  from  this,  when  a  poor  unfortunate  minister 
can  only  say,  "  Oh  me,  oh  me,  what  is  it — where  is  it  T  when 
he  puffs  and  puffs,  and  tries,  in  his  way,  to  inflate  a  text, 
and  makes  a  figure  of  himseK ;  all  this,  instead  of  the  real 
feeling  that  the  text  has  got  him,  and  gives  wings  and  res- 
piration to  him,  and  is  really  handling  him  in  a  very  divine 
manner.  In  the  first  instance,  you  will  have  a  graceless 
and  misty  fog-bank  of  a  performance,  and  in  the  last  the 
chain  of  the  delectable  mountams,  sharp  and  clear  against 
the  morning  Hght  of  the  New  Jerusalem — mother  of  us  all. 

It  has  also  been  truly  remarked,  that  "Style  may  be 
too  good  as  well  as  too  bad,  too  refined  and  poHshed  as 
well  as  too  rough  and  homely,"  too  Latinized,  too  Ger- 
manized, too  highly  elaborated ;  and  that  diction,  it  has 
been  truly  said,  "  Is  the  best  when  transparent  as  water  or 
as  glass."  You  do  not  think  of  the  medium  through 
which  you  perceive,  but  only  of  that  which  you  perceive. 

And  therefore  the  masters  of  the  laws  of  rhetoric  have 
insisted  on  //rt^cision  in  style,  as  the  grand  element  of  trans- 
parency.    And  do  you  know  what  precision  is  ?    It  is  the 


Ud,  Irving — ^\  He  Kens  about  Leather!"     385 

poioer  of  the  scissors,  it  is  the  art  of  cutting  down  and  cut- 
ting round.  I  do  not  say  concision — that  is,  perhaps,  the 
definition  of  the  mere  lawyer's  style,  the  matter-of-fact 
tyle — but  precision.  Sometimes  you  can  be  concise,  you 
should  always  be  precise  ;  and  this  concerns  not  the  barely 
making  yourself  understood,  but  the  using  of  words,  the  best 
words — this  will  be  felicity  and  strength.  Make  yourself 
respected,  attended  to.  "Ti-ue  success,"  says  M.  Guizot, 
"is  only  gained  by  sympathy,  or  by  its  counterfeit." 

But  educate  sympathy.  You  will  have,  some  of  you,  op- 
portunities of  visiting  the  farm-house  when  the  Httle  one  is 
dead ;  or  when  several  little  ones  are  ill,  and  is  prepar- 
ing to  go  to  the  Father's  house  ;  or  the  old  woman  in  the 
lane,  removed  from  the  village  street,  whose  children  are  in 
the  village  churchyard,  whose  husband  has  just  gone  there 
too,  her  only  surviving  son  in  Australia,  &c.,  &c.  ;  in  short, 
anything  that  adds  to  the  Imowledge  of  Hfe  and  of  the 
homes  of  those  whom  the  minister  has  to  touch  and  lead 
along  in  the  pathway  of  life  must  be  good.  In  the  life  of 
Edward  Irving  there  is  to  be  found  a  well-known  illustrative 
incident,  which  tends  to  show  the  value  the  poor  set  upon 
the  man  who  has  a  knowledge  of  their  homes  and  their 
ways  : 

A  certain  shoemaker,  radical  and  infidel,  was  among  the  num- 
ber of  those  under  Irving's  sj)ecial  care ;  a  home  workman  of 
course,  always  present,  silent,  with  his  back  turned  upon  the 
visitors,  and  refusing  any  communication  except  a  sullen  humph 
of  implied  criticism,  while  his  trembling  wife  made  her  depre- 
cating curtesy  in  the  foreground.  The  way  in  which  this  in- 
tractable individual  was  finally  won  over  is  attributed,  by  some 
tellers  of  the  story,  to  a  sudden  happy  inspiration  on  Irving's 
part ;  but,  by  others,  to  plot  and  intention.  Approaching  the 
bench  one  day,  the  visitor  took  up  a  piece  of  patent  leather,  then 
a  recent  invention,  and  remarked  upon  it  in  somewhat  skilled 
terms.  The  shoemaker  went  on  with  redoubled  industry  at  his 
work ,  but  at  last,  roused  and  exasperated  by  the  speech  and 
17 


386  On  tJie  Formation  of  Style^  etc, 

pretence  of  knowledge,  demanded,  in  great  contempt,  but  with- 
out raising  his  eyes,  "  What  do  ye  ken  about  leather  ? "  This 
was  just  the  opportunity  his  assailant  wanted ;  for  Irving,  though 
a  minister  and  a  scholar,  was  a  tanner's  son,  and  could  discom'se 
learnedly  upon  that  material.  Gradually  interested  and  molli- 
fied, the  cobbler  slackened  work,  and  listened  while  his  visitor 
described  some  process  of  making  shoes  by  machinery,  which 
he  had  carefully  got  up  for  the  purpose.  At  last,  the  shoemaker 
so  far  forgot  his  caution  as  to  suspend  his  work  altogether,  and 
lift  his  eyes  to  the  great  figure  stooping  over  his  bench.  The 
conversation  went  on  with  increased  vigor  after  this,  till  finally 
the  recusant  threw  down  his  arms :  "  Od,  you're  a  decent  kind 
o'  fellow !  do  you  preach  ? "  said  the  vanquished,  curious  to 
know  more  of  his  victor.  The  advantage  was  discreetly,  but  not 
too  hotly  pursued  ;  and  on  the  following  Sunday  the  rebel  made 
a  defiant,  shy  appearance  at  church.  Next  day  Irving  encoun- 
tered him  in  the  savory  Gallowgate,  and  hailed  him  as  a  friend. 
Walking  beside  him  in  natural  talk,  the  tall  probationer  laid  his 
hand  upon  the  shirt-sleeve  of  the  shrunken  sedentary  workman, 
and  marched  by  his  side  along  the  well-frequented  street.  By 
the  time  they  had  reached  the  end  of  their  mutual  way  not  a 
spark  of  resistance  was  left  in  the  shoemaker.  His  children 
henceforward  went  to  school ;  his  dex^recating  wife  went  to  the 
kirk  in  peace.  He  himself  acquired  that  suit  of  Sunday 
" blacks"  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  poor  Scotchman,  and  be- 
came a  churchgoer  and  respectable  member  of  society ;  while 
his  acknowledgment  of  his  conqueror  was  conveyed  with  char- 
acteristic reticence,  and  concealment  of  all  deeper  feeling,  in  the 
self-excusing  pretence — "He's  a  sensible  man,  yon;  he  kens 
about  leather !  " 

These  remarks  will  then,  perhaps,  sufficiently  declare  my 
conviction  that  the  most  useful  style  for  the  pulpit — if  there 
be  any  debate  between  the  colloquial  and  the  rhetorical — is 
the  colloquial ;  not  that  I  do  not  think  even  in  this  aU  the 
graces,  and  the  forces,  and  the  arts  of  rhetoric,  may  be  em- 
ployed ;  they  assuredly  may,  but  the  colloquial  style  is  suit- 
able and  more  hapi)y  in  its  higher  moods  for  the  very  large 


Back  Luther  against  Bossuet.         387 

congregation,  while  it  is  eminently  natural  and  suitable  for 
the  small  congregation.  In  large  assemblies,  no  doubt,  it 
may  be,  and  is,  natural  to  pitch  the  voice  high,  and  to  give 
a  loftier  stretch  to  language  and  ideas ;  but  even  then,  it 
seems  to  me,  the  colloquial  is  the  natural  style  ;  and  force 
perhaps,  is  reaUy  at  home  in  either.  Demosthenes  is  re- 
garded as  the  greatest  orator — ^he  was  a  master  of  force  ; 
some  have  said,  Give  your  days  and  nights  to  studying 
him.  Well,  remember  what  you  are  to  expect ;  he  was  a 
highly  accomphshed  Athenian  blackguard,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  some  have  admired  him  so  much ;  the 
admiration  of  Brougham  for  him  has  always  been  extreme. 
Or,  suppose  I  were  to  say,  Study  Bolingbroke,  study  Chat- 
ham, would  you  not  remind  me  that  we  have  a  spirit  to 
cultivate  as  well  as  a  style,  and  that  the  sjoirit  will  be  the 
very  essential  part  of  the  style  ?  Study  force,  but  always 
remember  that  you  must  not  aim  to  talk  like  a  Grecian,  or 
like  a  lawyer,  or  even  hke  a  French  pi-eacher  of  the  reign 
of  Louis  XrV.  Genius  is,  indeed,  the  true  divining  rod, 
and  it  knows  the  depths  of  human  souls.  Sanctified  genius 
will  find  the  way. 

In  the  contrasted  value  of  styles,  I  am  amazed  that  so 
calm  and  sound  a  judge  as  Henry  Hallam  should  give  the 
preference  to  Bossuet  over  Luther.  Bossuet  was  false,  ar- 
tificial— the  eagle  of  Meaux  had  the  wing,  and  the  cold 
crest,  eye,  and  beak,  and  talon,  of  the  eagle  ;  his  pulpit 
style  is  my  abomination,  as  the  man  is.  How  different  the 
warm,  noble,  rugged  heart,  and,  I  will  say,  the  encompass- 
ing and  majestic  homehness  of  Luther  ;  there  is  not  a  pas- 
sage hke  the  following  so  noble  and  so  sustaining  in  aU  the 
showy  verbiage  of  Bossuet.  You  will  remember  the  pas- 
sage, although  not  from  a  sermon,  it  is  Luther's  style. 
Why,  there  is  not  such  a  glorious  and  glowing  passage  in 
all  the  pages  of  Bossuet  : 

I  saw  lately  two  miracles.     First,  as  I  looked  out  at  the  win- 


388  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc, 

dow,  I  saw  tlie  stars  in  the  heavens  and  the  whole  fair  dome  of 
God ;  yet  did  I  see  no  pillars  on  which  the  Master  had  placed 
this  dome.  Nevertheless,  the  heavens  fell  not,  and  the  dome 
stands  yet  fast.  Now  there  are  some  that  seek  for  such  pillars. 
They  would  fain  lay  hold  of  and  feel  them.  And  because  they 
cannot  do  this,  they  struggle  and  tremble  as  though  the  heaven 
must  certainly  fall,  for  no  other  reason  than  because  they  cannot 
seize  or  see  the  pillars.  Could  they  but  lay  hold  of  these,  the 
heavens  would  stand  firm. 

Next,  I  saw  also  great  thick  clouds  hover  over  us  with  such 
weight  that  they  might  be  likened  to  a  great  sea.  Yet  saw  I  no 
floor  upon  which  they  rested  or  found  footing,  nor  any  vessels  in 
which  they  were  contained.  Still  they  fell  not  down  upon  us, 
but  greeted  us  with  a  sour  face  and  flew  away.  When  they  were 
gone,  then  shone  forth  both  the  floor  and  our  roof  which  had 
held  them, — the  rainbow.  That  was  a  weak,  thin,  small  floor 
and  roof;  and  it  vanished  in  the  clouds ;  and,  in  appearance, 
was  more  like  an  image  such  as  is  seen  through  a  painted  glass, 
than  a  strong  floor.  So  that  one  might  despair  on  account  of 
the  floor  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  great  weight  of  water. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  found  in  truth,  that  this  almighty  image 
(such  it  seemed)  bore  the  burden  of  the  waters  and  protected 
us.  Yet  there  be  some  who  consider,  regard  and  fear  the  water 
and  the  thickness  of  the  clouds  and  the  heavy  burden  of  them, 
more  than  this  thin,  narrow,  and  light  image.  For  they  would 
fain  feel  the  strength  of  the  image,  and  because  they  cannot  do 
this,  they  fear  that  the  clouds  will  occasion  an  everlasting  flood. 

He  often  seems  to  have  an  offensive  way  of  speech,  a  pu- 
gilistic attitude  of  expression,  as  when  he  says  : 

How  many  devils  were  there,  thinkest  thou,  last  year,  at  the 
Diet  at  Augsburg  ?  Every  bishop  brought  as  many  devils  there 
as  a  dog  hath  fleas  at  St.  John's  time.  But  God  sent  thither 
also  more  numerous  and  more  powerful  angels,  so  that  their  evil 
purpose  was  defeated.  And  howbeit  the  devils  stood  in  our 
way,  and  we  were  forced  to  separate  ere  peace  were  made,  yet 
were  our  enemies  unable  to  accomplish  aught  that  they  medita- 
ted and  desired. 


TTie  Style  of  Liitlier,  389 


Or,  as  when  we  find  him  saying  : 

We  tell  our  Lord  God  plainly  :  If  He  will  have  His  cliurch, 
then  He  must  look  how  to  maintain  and  defend  it ;  for  we  can 
neither  uphold  or  protect,  and  well  for  us  that  it  is  so  !  For  in 
case  we  could,  or  were  able  to  defend  it,  we  should  be  the  proud- 
est asses  under  heaven.  Who  is  the  church's  protector,  that  hath 
promised  to  be  with  her  to  the  end,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
not  prevail  against  her  ?  Kings,  Diets,  Parliament,  Lawyers  ? 
Marry !  no  such  cattle. 

I  often  think  that  I  shotdd  like  to  preach  as  Luther  wrote 
to  little  Johnny  Luther  : 

Grace  and  peace  in  Christ,  my  dear  little  son.  I  see  with 
pleasure  that  thou  learnest  well  and  prayest  diligently.  Do  so, 
my  son,  and  continue.  When  I  come  home  I  will  bring  thee  a 
pretty  fairing. 

I  know  a  pretty,  merry  garden  wherein  there  are  many  chil- 
dren. They  have  little  golden  coats,  and  they  gather  beautiful 
apples  under  the  trees,  and  pears,  cherries,  plums  and  wheat- 
plums  ;  they  sing,  and  jump,  and  are  merry.  They  have  beauti- 
ful little  horses,  too,  with  gold  bits  and  silver  saddles.  And  I 
asked  the  man  to  whom  the  garden  belongs,  whose  children 
they  were  ?  And  he  said,  They  are  the  children  that  love  to 
pray,  and  to  learn,  and  are  good.  Then  I  said,  Dear  man,  I 
have  a  son  too,  his  name  is  Johnny  Luther.  May  he  not  also 
come  into  this  garden  and  eat  these  beautiful  apples  and  pears, 
and  ride  these  fine  horses  ?  Then  the  man  said.  If  he  loves  to 
pray,  and  to  learn,  and  is  good,  he  shall  come  into  this  garden, 
and  Lippus  and  Jost  too,  and  when  they  all  come  together  they 
shall  have  fifes  and  trumpets,  lutes,  and  all  sorts  of  music,  and 
they  shall  dance,  and  shoot  with  little  cross-bows. 

And  he  showed  me  a  fine  meadow  there  in  the  garden,  made 
for  dancing.  There  hung  nothing  but  golden  fifes,  trumpets, 
and  fine  silver  cross-bows.  But  it  was  early,  and  the  children 
had  not  yet  eaten ;  therefore  I  could  not  wait  the  dance,  and  I 
said  to  the  man  :  Ah  !  dear  sir !  I  will  immediately  go  and  write 
all  this  to  my  little  son  Johnny,  and  tell  him  to  pray  diligently, 
and  to  learn  well,  and  to  be  good,  so  that  he  may  also  come  to 


390  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

this  garden.  But  he  has  an  aunt  Lehne,  he  must  bring  her  with 
him.     Then  the  man  said,  It  shall  be  so  ;  go  and  write  him  so. 

Therefore,  my  dear  little  son  Johnny,  learn  and  pray  away ! 
and  tell  Lippus  and  Jost  too,  that  they  must  learn  and  pray. 
And  then  you  shall  come  to  the  garden  together.  Herewith  I 
commend  thee  to  Almighty  God.  .  And  greet  aunt  Lehne,  and 
give  her  a  a  kiss  for  my  sake.  Thy  dear  Father, 

Anno,  1530.  Martinus  Luthek. 

So  I  would  rather  speak  thus,  than  with  tlie  most  sonor- 
ous dithyrambic  sweU,  for  we  should  desire  a  deep  and 
tender,  rather  than  a  tempestous  expression  of  feeling. 

Discussions  upon  pulpit  eloquence  have  recently  been, 
\ve  beheve,  more  than  ever  numerous.  This  is,  perhaps,  no 
proof  that  our  eloquence  is  either  of  a  higher  order  than 
in  other  times,  or  that  it  really  commands  more  attention. 
The  facilities  for  publication  of  all  kinds  are  greater,  and 
the  number  of  those  who  devote  themselves  to  the  tasks  of 
the  pulpit  are  constantly  increasing.  Of  several  works 
which  have  recently  passed  before  our  eyes,  that  of  the 
Abbe  Mullois  is  certainly  one  of  the  very  best.*  It  says 
something  for  the  Emperor  Napoleon  that  his  chaplain  is  a 
man  of  such  fresh,  large,  and  wide  sympathies ;  it  is  the 
work  of  a  Cathohc,  but  ministers  of  any  denomination  wiU 
find  httle  upon  the  score  of  faith  to  condemn,  and  much  to 
suggest  and  instruct.  If  we  took  exception  to  it,  it  would 
be  rather  that  it  contains  many  features  of  what  we  under- 
stand by  the  French  style — much  that  is  sentimental  and 
exaggerated  ;  but  it  abounds  in  real  practical  wisdom,  and 

*  1.  "  The  Clergy  and  the  Pulpit  in  their  Relations  to  the  People." 
By  M.  L*Abhe  Isidore  Mullois,  Chaplain  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon 
III.,  and  Missionary  Apostolic.  Translated  by  George  Percy  Badger. 
Smith,  Elder,  and  Co. 

2.  "  Sacred  Eloquence,  or  the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Preaching." 
By  the  Rev.  Thomas  J.  Potter,  Professor  of  Sacred  Eloquence  in 
the  Foreign  Military  College  of  All  Hallows.    James  Duffy. 


A  Motto  for  a  Sneer  er  "  Cmn  Risu  Mir  or  V   391 

that  which  represents  a  nationality  can  only  be  relatively  a 
fault.  The  chapters  of  M.  Mullois  are  brief,  and  in  their 
very  titles  they  have  a  pith  and  a  meaning  very  likely  to 
move  a  student  of  pulpit  eloquence  to  hear  or  read  what 
further  the  writer  has  to  say,  who  has  summed  up  his  im- 
pressions in  such  a  title.  He  discusses,  in  a  very  sympa- 
thetic manner,  in  a  more  lengthy  chapter,  the  relation  the 
peoj)le  should  bear  to  the  pulpit  of  our  age  :  it  is  a  very 
difficult  and  vexed  question.  A  very  large  number  of  peo- 
ple in  our  country  seem  j)retty  much  determined  that  it  is 
desirable  the  pulpit  should  come  to  an  end.  I  have  been 
interested,  within  these  few  weeks  past,  in  some  papers,  in 
that  most  racy  and  admirably  conducted  of  weekly  news- 
papers, The  Spectator,  referring  to  church  and  chapel-going  ; 
one  entitled,  "  Why  I  go  to  church,"  another,  "  Why  I 
don't,"  &c.,  &c.  One  of  these  amiable  writers,  to  quote 
some  of  his  aphorisms,  says,  "  I  dislike  good  sermons  just 
as  much  as  bad."  Concerning  the  preacher,  he  says,  "I  do 
not  want  his  theology — in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  I  know 
three  times,  or  thirty  times  as  much  theology  as  he  does." 
Another  writer  says,  "  I  admit  for  myself,  that  the  one  great 
take-off  in  going  to  church,  is  the  sermon."  He  continues, 
"  the  parson  so  enrages  my  wife,  that  she  says  that  she  is 
always  wrestling  all  sermon-time  with  a  morbid  desire  to 
throw  a  prayer-book  at  his  head."*  Now  these  things  and 
many  others  Hke  them,  said  in  such  a  paper  as  the  Spectator 
and  from  many  other  similar  homiletical  chairs — The  Times, 
Daily  Telegraph,  Saturday  llemeiv,  &c,,  show  that  the  pulpit 
has  really  come  to  a  very  bad  pass  amongst  us.  We  be- 
lieve that  while  ministers  of  all  denominations  receive  as 
large  or  larger  an  amount  of  really  honest  respect  than 

*  This  is  pretty  strong  in  tlie  *'  Gum  risit  miror  "  vein,  but  Dean 
Alford  speaks  of  "  the  pitiful  *  Oh  dear,  dear,'  kind  of  look  of  almost 
every  congregation  listening  to  an  ordinary  sermon  in  the  Church 
of  England." — Contemporary  Hemew. 


392  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc, 

they  ever  received,  respect  for  tlie  preacher — the  mere  man 
of  the  pulpit — ^was  scarcely  ever  so  low  as  in  this  day,  with 
some  notable  and  admirable  exceptions,  serving  to  show 
how  the  pulpit  can  maintain  its  mastery  and  power — when 
the  right  man  is  in  it.  It  is  astonishing  to  think  of  the 
unaccountable  thousands  of  sermons  preached  every  week 
to  very  httle  purpose,  regarded  merely  as  sermons.  There 
is  a  sense  of  the  value  of  divine  service,  and  attendance 
upon  it ;  but  the  part  of  the  divine  service,  which  I  am 
afraid  is  often  the  most  wearisome,  is  the  sermon.  I  think 
this  is  easy  to  be  accounted  for.  I  have  often  expressed 
my  sense  of  bitter  amusement  that  in  almost  all  our  col- 
leges, the  preparation  for  the  pulpit  is  overlooked.  Young 
men  go  through  their  studies,  and  become  fitted  for  classi- 
cal tutors,  schoolmasters,  or  professors,  but  not  to  deal 
with  himian  hearts,  or  to  attain  ease,  self-possession,  and 
tact  in  the  managing  of  audiences.  Necessary,  as  it  un- 
doubtedly is,  that  the  minister  should  be  fuUy  acquainted 
with  theology,  as  a  science,  and  able  to  deal  with  the  texts 
by  the  lights  of  criticism  and  exegesis,  this  is  not  enough 
for  the  teacher  who  is  to  hold  an  influence  over  hundreds  of 
minds  at  the  same  moment.  It  is  astonishing  what  a  num- 
ber of  well-furnished  minds  we  are  acquainted  with,  unable 
to  turn  their  mental  furniture  to  good  account  in  public.  I 
suppose  that  in  this  neglect  all  departments  of  the  Church 
are  equally  blame-worthy,  and,  according  to  M.  Mullois, 
although  there  are  some  recent  instances  to  the  contrary, 
especially  in  the  order  of  the  Jesuits,  the  Church  of  Rome 
is  not  much  more  exemplary  in  the  training  she  furnishes 
for  her  preachers. 

I  have  often  been  struck  with  the  fact  I  do  not  remem- 
ber that  in  any  system  of  pulpit  rhetoric  it  has  been  dis- 
tinctly noticed,  that  many  of  the  maxims,  they  may  be 
called  proverbs,  in  Horace's  AH  of  Poetry,  would  form  a 
valuable  code  of  laws  for  the  pulpit  on  the  secular  side. 


Lamartine^  on  the  Man  in  the  Pulpit.      3^3 

Of  course  it  is  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  divine  side 
anticipates,  precedes,  and  derives  its  power  from  altogether 
another  source.  I  say  a  valuable  code  of  laws  might  be 
constructed  on  the  art  of  preaching.  At  present  ministers 
seem  to  need  lessons  to  save  themselves  from  being  des- 
pised. As  we  have  intimated,  it  seems  to  be  felt  that  the 
service  of  worship  is  desirable,  and  may  be  dehghtful. 
The  work  of  the  pulpit  is,  in  most  of  the  criticism  which 
meets  our  eye,  simply  spoken  of  as  despicable.  And  even 
a  good  man,  whose  life  is  most  admu-able  and  veritable, 
moves,  in  most  instances,  the  lips  of  his  audience  to  a 
curve  of  contempt  when  he  assumes  the  office  of  the 
preacher.  Few  preachers  are  Bossuets ;  of  course  there 
perhaps  would  be  more  Bossuets  were  the  number  of 
preachers  diminished  ;  we  have  far  too  many,  or,  what 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  far  too  few  of  the  right 
cahbre.  Churches  and  colleges  are  too  reckless  in  shower- 
ing young  curates  over  the  country.  But  the  words  of 
Lamartine,  in  part  referring  to  him  who  has  been  called 
the  "Eagle  of  Eloquence,"  may  suggest  some  hints  of  that 
to  which  all  preachers  should  desire  to  attain. 

Of  all  the  eminences  which  a  mortal  may  reach  on  earth,  the 
highest  to  a  man  of  talent  is  incontestably  the  sacred  pulpit. 
If  this  individual  happens  to  be  Bossuet ;  that  is  to  say,  if  he 
unites  in  his  person,  conviction  to  inspire  the  commanding  atti- 
tude, purity  of  life  to  enhance  the  power  of  truth,  untiring  zeal, 
an  air  of  imposing  authority,  celebrity  which  commands  respect- 
ful attention,  episcopal  rank  which  consecrates,  age  which  gives 
holiness  of  appearance,  genius  which  constitutes  the  divinity 
of  speech,  reflective  power  which  marks  the  mastery  of  intelh- 
gence,  sudden  bursts  of  eloquence  which  carry  the  minds  of 
listeners  by  assault,  poetic  imagery  which  adds  lustre  to  trutli, — 
a  deep,  sonorous  voice,  which  reflects  the  tone  of  the  thoughts, 
—silvery  locks,  the  paleness  of  strong  emotion,  the  penetrating 
glance  and  expressive  mouth  ;— in  a  word,  all  the  animated  and 
17* 


394  ^^  ^^^^  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

well-yaried  gestures  which  indicate  the  emotions  of  the  soul  ;— 
if  such  a  man  issues  slowly  from  his  self-concentrated  reflection, 
as  from  some  inward  sanctuary ;  if  he  suffers  himself  to  be  raised 
gradually  by  excitement,  like  the  eagle,  the  first  heavy  flapping 
of  whose  wings  can  scarcely  produce  air  enough  to  carry  him 
aloft ;  if  he  at  length  respires  freely,  and  takes  flight ;  if  he 
no  longer  feels  the  pulpit  beneath  his  feet ;  if  he  draws  in  a  full 
breath  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  and  pours  forth  unceasingly  from 
this  lofty  height,  to  his  hearers,  the  inspiration  which  comes  to 
them  as  the  word  of  God, — this  being  is  no  longer  individual 
man,  he  becomes  an  organ  of  the  Divine  will,  a  prophetic  voice. 
And  what  a  voice !  A  voice  which  is  never  hoarse,  broken, 
soured,  irritated,  or  troubled  by  the  worldly  and  passionate  strug- 
gles of  interest  peculiar  to  the  time ;  a  voice  which,  like  that  of 
the  thunder  in  the  clouds,  or  the  organ  in  the  cathedral,  has 
never  been  anything  but  the  medium  of  power  and  divine  per- 
suasion to  the  soul;  a  voice  which  only  speaks  to  kneeling 
auditors ;  a  voice  which  is  listened  to  in  profound  silence,  to 
which  none  reply  save  by  an  inclination  of  the  head  or  by  fall- 
ing tears — those  mute  applauses  of  the  soul ! — a  voice  which  is 
never  refuted  or  contradicted,  even  when  it  astonishes  or 
wounds  ;  a  voice,  in  fine,  which  does  not  speak  in  the  name  of 
opinion,  which  is  variable;  nor  in  the  name  of  philosophy, 
which  is  open  to  discussion  ;  nor  in  the  name  of  country,  which 
is  local ;  nor  in  the  name  of  regal  supremacy,  which  is  tem- 
poral, nor  in  the  name  of  the  speaker  himself,  who  is  an  agent 
transformed  for  the  occasion ;  but  which  speaks  in  the  name  of 
God,  an  authority  of  language  unequalled  upon  earth,  and 
against  which  the  lowest  murmur  is  impious  and  the  smallest 
opposition  a  blasphemy. 

All  this,  it  may  be  said,  is  genius;  but  it  is  art  too — ^it  is 
study — it  is  knowledge.  Also,  it  may  be  said,  that  a 
Bossuet-like  style  of  eloquence  is  not  very  desirable;  but 
those  principles,  which  in  the  age  of  efflorescence  and 
foliage  formed  him,  would,  in  our  age,  if  studied  and  ap- 
plied, form  and  fit  the  modern  preacher  to  enter  into  and 
carry  along  with  him  the  minds  of  his  audiences.    There  is 


^^  Every  Hearer  is  hy  Nature  Su&piciousP    395 

a  great  principle  involved  in  the  title  of  the  first  lecture  of 
M.  MuUois,  "  Thai  to  address  men  ivell,  they  must  he  loved 
much"  We  beheve  there  is  no  principle  so  certain;  and 
the  difficulty  of  its  application  is  dreadfully,  painfully  ob- 
vious. That  is  what  audiences  want  in.  the  miniBter, — 
that,  where  it  is  a  motive-power  in  speech,  burns  all  before 
it,  with  its  tenderness  and  strength;  but  what  a  thing  this 
is  to  say !  It  underhes  the  theory  of  Theremin.*  Ther- 
emin says,  the  "  orator  is  an  upright  man  who  understands 
speaking;  oratory  is  intellectual  virtue."  What  he  m- 
tended  is,  that  the  result  of  a  conscious,  enlightened  will, 
is  moral,  is  the  great  motive-power  of  man.  An  eloquent 
mind  is  a  mind  under  motion;  it  is  the  secret  of  all  influ- 
ence. Where  it  is,  it  makes  no  mistakes,  in  accent,  feature, 
or  expression.  As  M.  Mullois  says :  "  We  are  always  elo- 
quent when  we  wish  to  save  one  whom  we  love.  We  are 
always  hstened  to  when  we  are  loved." 

This  seems  really  to  be  the  beginning  of  pulpit  success 
and  power.  Where  it  really  exists,  disappointment  and 
neglect  will  not  daunt;  it  will  lay  its  account  for  a  large 
amount  of  misconception  and  self-sacrifice;  it  will  know 
that  the  last  thing  man  believes  in  anywhere  is  disinter- 
estedness, and  the  last  person  whom  he  beheves  possible 
to  be  disinterested  is  a  priest  or  preacher.  The  earn- 
est and  real  minister  going  into  the  pulpit,  and  looking 
round  upon  a  thousand  or  more  of  people,  may  say  to 
himself,  "Nearly  all  these  are  inveterate  beHevers  in  my 
selfishness,  and  xorejudiced  against  those  truths  and  prin- 
ciples which  I  am  to  bear  to  them."  That  mistrust  he 
must  overcome.  A  preacher  must,  first  of  all,  win  the 
confidence  of  his  hearers.  No  art  can  in  the  long  run 
effect  this,  but  an  affectionate  nature  will  also,  at  length, 

^  Eloquence  a  Virtue :  or,  Outlines  of  a  Systematic  Rhetoric, 
Translated  from  the  German  of  Dr.  Francis  Theremin.  By  W.  G. 
T.  Shedd.     Andover  :  W.  F.  Draper. 


396  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc, 

conquer  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  deep  goodness,  the 
reality  and  unselfislmess  of  those  affections.  Indeed,  this 
principle  seems  most  essentially  to  precede  and  underlie 
all  mental  preparation.  Here  a  student  might  be  met  by 
the  words  of  Horace,  "  Non  est  scUis  poemata  esse  pvlchra 
surdo  didda  et  agunto  aniraum  auditoris.'' — "  It  is  not  enough 
that  poems  be  beautiful,  they  must  be  affecting,  and  carry 
the  soul  of  the  hearer " — ^therefore,  a  speaker  should  not 
address  himseK  to  the  intellect  of  his  audience  without  a 
regard  to  the  necessities  of  their  moral  nature.  What  is 
that  moral  nature?  What  does  it  demand?  Then  we 
recur  to  what  I  impHed  above.  We  cannot  too  often  re- 
member it;  as  Professor  Shedd  says,  "  Every  hearer  is  by 
nature  suspicious,  especially  when  he  perceives  that  the 
right  to  influence  his  nature  is  claimed."  All  the  more 
necessity,  therefore,  why  at  all  points  the  speaker  should 
be  thoroughly  furnished  and  equipped,  and,  especially  at 
rest  in  his  own  region  of  knowledge  and  affection;  in  which 
case  the  indifference,  and  even  the  very  insolence  of  hear- 
ers— ^not  an  uncommon  thing  to  see  from  the  pulpit — ^wiU 
but  increase  the  energy  of  the  motive  power  within;  the 
truth,  but  especially  truth  of  the  hoHest  and  profoundest 
order,  reaUy  and  tenaciously  held  and  felt,  will  ahnost 
invariably  make  a  man  eloquent.  While,  if  a  man  be  false 
in  himself — ^I  do  not  mean  reaUy  immorally  so — ^but  if  he 
be  speaking,  it  may  be  against  time,  with  no  very  dear 
perception  of  the  matter  in  hand,  especially  with  no  pro- 
found convictions  about  the  truth,  and  above  aU,  with  no 
strong  controlling  love,  and  direct  interest  in  men,  their 
interests,  their  souls,  their  affections;  in  this  state  of  false- 
ness, he  will  almost  invariably  become  verbose,  or,  worse, 
over-ornamented — his  words  will  have  a  steely  ghtter;  he 
T\ill  refine  and  become  critical,  and  degenerate  into  infla- 
tion and  bombast.  The  reader  or  hearer  may  have  seen 
among  mountainous  and  Alpine  heights  those  sHght  falls 


"  Eloquence  is  Mind  in  Motion P  397 

of  water,  not  worthy  the  name  of  cataracts,  which,  having 
no  body  to  reach  the  vales  beneath,  in  their  fall  dissolve  in 
spray,  foam,  and  thin  vapor,— very  pretty  as  the  rays  of 
light  tint  them,  but  having  no  impetus  nor  power;  and  not 
spreading  by  the  farms  and  homesteads — no  fertilizing 
fniitfulness.  There  is  a  speech  exactly  of  this  order;  it  is 
the  eloquence  of  prettiness.  We  have  sometimes  called  it 
the  eloquence  of  the  finger-nails.  Horace  speaks  of  those 
who,  in  some  great  and  ambitious  monument  in  brass,  ex- 
press the  nails,  and  imitate  the  soft  hairs,  while  the  princi- 
pal of  all,  the  figure  itself,  is  unstudied,  unsatisfactory, 
perhaps  disgusting;  there  are  those  who  are  content  to  be 
artists  in  the  small — ^in  the  little  and  insignificant;  their 
great  aim  is  to  be  neat,  to  carve  giants'  heads  in  cherry- 
stones. You  wonder  and  admire,  but  are  quite  unedified. 
Such  preachers  peril  all  their  usefulness  in  the  production 
of  "innocent  httle  sermons;"  utterly  powerless  for  any 
moral  effect.  It  is  the  movement  of  the  soul  which  will 
enable  a  man  to  speak;  as  the  poet  has  expressed  it,  giving 
verse  to  the  image  before  our  eyes  in  the  above  sentence : 

.    With  an  eloquence,  not  hke  those  rills  from  a  height, 
Which  sparkle,  and  foam,  and  in  vapor  are  o'er  ; 
But  a  current  that  works  out  its  way  into  light; 

Through  the  filtering  recesses  of  thought  and  of  lore. 

Eloquence  has  been  well  defined  as  truth  clearly  per- 
ceived, deeply  felt,  and  distinctly  expressed.  Then  follows 
that  state  which  D'Alembert  defines  as  eloquence.  '^  It  is," 
says  he,  "  the  transfer  of  the  orator's  consciousness  into  the 
auditor's  consciousness."  In  a  word,  Shedd  says  again, 
"Eloquence  is  a  mind  in  motion." 

There  is  another  subject  which  has  often,  in  connection 
with  thoughts  upon  pulpit  work,  held  our  almost  detached 
attention  ;  it  is  on  the  power  and  accent  of  conviction.  This 
grows,  of  course,  out  of  the  ardor  of  the  feehng^s.     This  has 


^^aKI?'SRSiTY| 


398  On  tlie  Formation  of  Style^  etc, 

been  wondrously  forgotten  ;  the  vulgar  impression  has  been, 
that  passion,  or,  more  correctly,  the  rage  and  tempest  of 
manner,  are  convincing  and  affecting  ;  they  may  be,  but  not 
when  they  merely  beat  the  air.  Even  in  those  cases,  the 
accent  does  the  real  work,  and  the  accent  is  the  soul,  and 
the  conviction.  Jonathan  Edwards,  as  you  well  know,  was 
short-sighted,  and  preached  from  notes  often  held  close  up 
to  his  face,  and  in  the  pulpit  stood  perfectly  motionless  and 
stiU.  What  then  could  have  produced  those  wondrous  ec- 
stacies  and  terrors  in  his  audience  of  which  we  read  ?  It 
must  have  been  the  accent  of  conviction.  Have  we  not 
known  men,  who,  with  a  graceless  manner,  a  voice  of  no 
melody,  no  glow  or  glory  of  speech,  no  vividness  of  concep- 
tion, have  yet  first  commanded  our  respect,  then  compelled 
our  attention,  then  taken  us  captive  ?  Here  is  hope  for  men 
not  possessed  of  that  variable  gift  called  genius — surely 
every  preacher  might  hope  to  attain  to  this.  Attain  to  it  ? 
every  man  will  have  it,  if  he  have  it.  What  sort  of  a  crea- 
ture is  the  preacher  without  convictions  ?  and  if  all  convic- 
tions are  sharp,  clear — say  incisive  and  tender — ^then  they 
will  give  tone  to  his  words.  This  is  the  art  beyond  the 
reach  of  art,  though  art  may  assuredly  help  it ;  rhetoricians 
and  readers  never  attain  to  this  as  mere  rhetoricians  and 
readers  ;  it  is  soul,  feeling — that  is,  the  accent  of  conviction, 
which  moves,  enUghtens,  and  sways  ;  it  does  so  because  it 
"  believes,  speaks,  arrests,  gud  alarms." 

And  this  seems  to  give  concisely  the  one  idea  of  the 
Christian  ministry — to  prepare  quiet  resting-places  for 
weary  people.  I  shaU  not,  I  hope,  be  misunderstood,  when 
I  say  that  a  very  affectionate  tongue  may  be  moved  by  a 
very  careful  pulpit-artist :  the  discourses  are  labored  and 
thought  over  with  the  same  care  a  painter  bestows  on  his 
composition,  and  his  colors,  his  forms,  and  Hghts  and 
shades.  Dr.  Raleigh  is  a  master  of  that  which  preachers 
have  so  much  neglected,  but  without  which  the  sermon  is 


Nervousness  may  he  Pulpit  Power,      ^gg 

usually  nothing, — accent;  for  accent  is  the  soul  of  elo- 
quence, the  soul  of  tenderness ;  emphasis  is  the  art  of  af- 
fectionateness.*  Dr.  Kaleigh  shows  himself  to  be  one  of 
the  masters  of  pathos  ;  this  is  a  power  very  little  exercised 
among  us,  and  it  cannot  be  cultivated  unless  there  be  the 
deep  inner-spring  of  emotion.  Readers  will  remember  some 
words  of  St.  Augustine,  aheady  quoted  by  us,  in  which  he 
exalts  so  much  the  acclamation  of  tears  as  incomparably 
above  the  acclamation  of  applause,  and  counts  persuasion 
and  change  of  life  as  only  hkely  to  result  from  the  starting 
of  the  tear. 

Alexander  Raleigh  would  furnish  an  admirable  illustra- 
tion to  the  remarks  made  by  Lord  Lytton,  in  Caxtoniana, 
on  the  power  of  shyness  and  nervousness  as  an  element  of 
the  most  successful  oratory.  No  doubt,  shyness — nervous 
susceptibility — is  common  enough,  especially  in  young 
speakers  ;  but  that  throbbing,  thriUing  nervousness  of  emo- 
tion united  to  perfect  command  over  the  subject,  and  inter- 
est in  it,  with  personal  self-possession,  is,  in  the  degTee  in 
which  it  rules  in  the  mind  of  an  orator,  a  sceptre  of  success 
and  power.     I  quote  these  words : 

Kow,  I  apprehend  that  the  ideal  excellence  thus  admirably 
described  is  always  present  to  the  contemplation  of  the  highest 
order  of  genius,  and  tends  to  quicken  and  perpetuate  the  ner- 
vous susceptibility,  which  gives  courage  while  it  seems  like  fear. 

Nervousness,  to  give  the  susceptibility  I  speak  of  its  familiar 
name,  is  perhaps  the  quality  which  great  orators  have  the  most 
in  common.  I  doubt  whether  there  has  been  any  public  speaker 
of  the  highest  order  of  eloquence  who  has  not  felt  an  anxiety  or 
apprehension,  more  or  less  actually  painful,  before  rising  to  ad- 
dress an  audience  upon  any  very  important  subject  on  which  he 
has  meditated  beforehand.  This  nervousness  will,  indeed,  prob- 
ably be  i^roportioned  to  the  amount  of  previous  preparation,  ever 

*  Quiet  Resting-Places,  and  other  Sermons.  By  Alexander  Ror 
leigli,  Canonbury. 


Aoo  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

though  the  necessities  of  reply  or  the  changeful  temperament 
which  characterizes  public  assemblies  may  compel  the  orator  to 
modify,  alter,  perhaps  wholly  reject,  what,  in  previous  prepara- 
tion, he  had  designed  to  say.  The  fact  of  preparation  itself  had 
impressed  him  with  the  dignity  of  the  subject — ^with  the  respon- 
sibilities that  devolve  on  an  advocate  from  whom  much  is  ex- 
pected, on  whose  individual  utterance  results  affecting  the  inter- 
ests of  many  may  depend.  His  imagination  had  been  roused 
and  warmed,  and  there  is  no  imagination  where  there  is  no  sen- 
sibility. Thus  the  orator  had  mentally  surveyed,  as  it  were,  at 
a  distance,  the  loftiest  height  of  his  argument ;  and  now,  when 
he  is  about  to  ascend  to  it,  the  awe  of  the  altitude  is  felt. 

In  speeches  thoroughly  impromptu,  in  which  the  mind  of  the 
speaker  has  not  had  leisure  to  brood  over  what  he  is  called  upon 
suddenly  to  say,  the  nervousness  either  does  not  exist  or  is  much 
less  painfully  felt ;  because  then  the  speaker  has  not  set  before 
his  imagination  some  ideal  perfection  to  which  he  desires  to 
attain,  and  of  which  he  fears  to  fall  short.  And  this  I  take  to 
be  the  main  reason  why  speakers  who  so  value  themselves  on 
readiness  that  they  never  revolve  beforehand  what  they  can 
glibly  utter,  do  not  rise  above  mediocrity.  To  no  such  speaker 
has  posterity  accorded  the  name  of  orator.  The  extempore 
speaker  is  not  an  orator,  though  the  orator  must  of  necessity  be, 
whenever  occasion  calls  for  it,  an  extempore  speaker.  Extem- 
poraneous speaking  is,  indeed,  the  groundwork  of  the  orator's 
art ;  preparation  is  the  last  finish,  and  the  most  difficult  of  all 
his  accomplishments.  To  learn  by  heart  as  a  schoolboy,  or  to 
prepare  as  an  orator,  are  two  things  not  only  essentially  different 
but  essentially  antagonistic  to  each  other;  for  the  work  most 
opposed  to  an  effective  oration  is  an  elegant  essay.* 

Surprise  has  often  been  expressed  that  the  timid,  appa- 
rently shrinking,  and  nervous  speaker,  seems  to  be  the  very 
man  who  most  subdues  in  the  pulpit,  where  especially  the 
emotions  have  to  be  aroused — he  is  the  man  who  uses 
words  as  if  brandishing  a  torch  of  flame  ;  or  rolls  liis  words 
like  retiring  and  scarcely  audible  thunders,  but  even  there- 

*  Caxtoniana.    By  Lord  Lyttou. 


Preaching  to  the  Conscience,  40 1 

fore  more  impressive  ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  the  excite- 
ment seems  to  increase  in  proportion  to  the  preparation  be- 
stowed. Many  of  the  most  eminent  of  modem  preachers 
have  met  their  audiences  with  most  fear.  A  man  may  ex- 
pound, or  talk  untremulously,  with  a  certain  feHcity  of  words 
and  thoughts,  but  inspiration  gives  palpitation  and  trepi- 
dation, and  fear,  and  awe.  Those  who  have  heard  the  fre- 
quent haK-broken  hesitancy,  which  seems  sometimes  to 
fracture  a  sentence, — a  sort  of  haK-forgetfulness,  or  waiting 
lest  the  right  word  should  slip  away,  (usually  a  specially 
happy  and  adjusting  one,)  will  imderstand  the  relation  of 
these  remarks  to  the  orator.  It  is  often  so  with  descrip- 
tive preachers ;  the  mind  of  the  preacher  is  waiting — he 
sees  his  picture  ;  he  is  adding  touch  to  touch  ;  he  is  com- 
pleting the  picture.  He  is  intense,  and  how  many  men 
have  earnest  natures  who  have  not  intense  natures.  The 
one  says  and  does  forcible  thmgs  ;  the  other  says  and  does 
piercing,  searching  things  ;  the  first  is  most  in  the  blood, 
the  last  is  most  in  the  conscience.  This  is  the  faculty  of 
Peter,  to  whom  it  was  given  "  to  prick  men  to  the  heart," 
when  he  spoke. 

"  True  success  is  only  gained,"  we  have  heard  Guizot  say, 
"  by  sympathy,  or  by  its  counterfeit ;"  but  by  this  the 
preacher  rises  to  more  than  information,  statement,  or  even 
persuasion.  By  the  education  of  sympathy,  or  experience, 
the  preacher  learns  the  power  of  particular  truths  as 
adaptations  to  particular  wants.  This  is  what  should  be 
called  practical  preaching.  A  preacher  may  appeal  in  any 
measure  to  the  judgment,  the  pure  reason,  the  recognized 
principles  of  truth  ;  men  hear,  but  this  does  not  affect ;  and 
the  statement  of  a  fact,  unless  it  be  made  personally 
interesting,  is  not  effective  on  the  Hfe.  And  then  the  im- 
agination, but  this  also  may  be  very  cold ;  this  charms, 
however,  and  interests,  still  not  so  large  a  class  as  the 
judgment,   the  reason ;    but  if  the  preacher  speaks  by 


402  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

analogy  he  cannot  speak  too  often,  and  analogy  stands  mid- 
way between  the  pure  reason  and  imagination,  and  some, 
have  thought  it  one  with  the  argument.  But  the  affections 
these  are  a  fountain  of  more  tender  interest,  and  it  may 
be  tliought  there  should  be  some  appeal  to  the  affections  in 
every  sermon,  but  far  more  sparingly  than  the  appeal  to 
the  imagination  ;  and  the  preacher  who  speaks  to  the  af- 
fections should  be  himseK  affected.  But  that  which  is 
most  sacred  is  the  region  of  the  moral  affections — ^the  con- 
science. Conscience,  that  is  the  skin  of  the  whole  man  ;  this 
should  be  touched  rarely — touched  delicately,  cunnuigly,  yet 
firmly,  unhesitatingly,  and  touched  only  with  the  fingers  of 
the  preacher's  own  conscience.  The  preacher  must  take 
care  lest  he  harden  conscience  by  touchmg  it,  and  must  take 
care  lest  he  harden  his  own  by  touching  it ;  it  is  a  deHcate 
thing,  the  preacher  should  reverence  it,  rouse  it,  leave  it, 
then  return  to  it  again.  This  is  effective  preaching.  For 
effective  preaching,  there  are,  no  doubt,  some  great  helps 
and  aids,  but  there  are  some  departments  of  power  for 
which  there  is  little  help — only  reflection,  the  knowledge  of 
our  own  nature,  the  consciousness,  nay  the  active  conscious- 
ness which  winds  its  way  into  the  secret  cell  of  our  own 
being — this  amplifies  the  preacher's  power  in  dealing  with 
others.  For  instance,  every  nature  is  accessible  to  remorse, 
and  the  preacher  is  to  hold  it  as  a  canon,  that  every  nature 
with  which  he  comes  in  contact,  needs  the  grace  of  repent- 
ance ;  but  in  most  instance,  this  can  only  result  from  a 
very  active  state  of  keenly  awakened  and  intense  internal 
sorrow  ;  in  any  audience  there  must  be  many  hi  whom  it  is 
desirable  to  produce  this  emotion.  Kemorse  is  the  trumpet 
calling  to  repentance.  What  a  different  affair  this  is  to  the 
mere  preparation  of  sermons — a  mere  arrangement  of  di- 
visions a  mere  utterance  of  statements — to  be  so  benevo- 
lently moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  the  preacher  makes 
it  a  matter  of  profound  and  affectionate  study,  how  to 


The  Preacher  a  tSacred  Pathologist      403 

awaken,  or  how  to  be  certain  that  in  a  great  ma^ay  of  those 
so  apparently  still  and  cahn,  who  occupy  a  relation  to  the 
universe  apparently  so  peaceful,  there  is  that  which  pro- 
claims all  not  right  within — the  heart  maybe  in  uproar  and 
anguish — the  mind  may  be  preying  on  itself.  This  is  one 
of  the  businesses  of  the  human  soul  in  which  the  preacher 
has  a  very  immediate  and  most  intimate  concern. 

What  is  the  true  preacher  ?  A  sacred  pathologist ! — ^he 
lances  the  soul,  "  pricking  the  heart,"  he  deals  with  the  in- 
sanity and  the  lunacy  and  the  disease  of  the  soul.  How  the 
physician  studies — ^how  closely  the  surgeon  attends  to  the 
duties  of  his  profession !  How  he  studies  the  Materia 
Iledica,  the  Parmacopoeia  !  How  he  practises  the  use  of 
the  knife,  not  the  same  medicine  for  every  disease,  not  the 
same  knife  for  every  operation !  May  we  not  suspect  that 
congregations  and  churches  would  be  in  a  different  state, 
had  ministers  as  closely  watched  and  studied  the  means  of 
dealing  with  souls  ?  I  do  not  plead  for  the  imhallowed 
lore  of  the  confessional ;  but  are  souls  therefore  to  be 
thrown  from  all  but  the  most  general  statement,  the  mere 
textuary  of  truth  ?  Why  preach,  if  the  Word  is  not  to  be 
medicated,  appropriated  and  applied?  If  therefore  re- 
morse is  awakened,  it  is  that  it  may  lead  to  repentance. 
These  are  the  precursors  of  conversion  ;  only  it  is  also  dis- 
astrous when  the  minister  has,  as  is  often  the  case,  a  num- 
ber of  cases  on  his  hands  he  knows  not  what  to  do  with.  He 
has  roused  what  he  cannot  queU  ;  and  then  what  can  he  do 
but  hand  again  over  to  indifference  or  to  despair  those 
within  whom  he  has  stirred  the  slumbering  conscience.  It 
is  quite  possible,  even  from  the  pulpit,  to  startle  devils 
which  the  preacher  is  quite  incompetent  to  allay  or  to  con- 
trol. How  often,  amazed,  the  modem  preacher  e:s:claims, 
"  Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out  ?" 

These  remarks  suggest,  at  once,  how  the  pulpit  provides 
for  the  soul  a  quiet  resting-place,  and  how  it  is  that  fre- 


404  ^^  ^^^  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

quently  the  soul  is  disappointed  of  the  rest  it  might  expect 
to  find  there.  And  these  remarks  also  grow  out  of  the  im- 
pression that  the  preacher  seeks  to  bring  a  lenitive  to  the 
conscience.  He  searches  it,  but  he  soothes  it.  Dr. 
Ealeigh  well  and  most  happily  says  : — "  He  knows  how 
much  there  is  in  a  sermon  which  cannot  be  published.  If 
it  is  true  it  is  a  '  building  of  God '  for  the  time  not  '  made 
with  hands/  and  neither  hands  nor  pens  can  preserve  it. 
'  The  grace  of  the  fashion  of  it  perisheth/  or  survives  only 
in  the  memory  and  the  life  of  the  hearer.  The  elastic 
obedient  words  seem  cool  and  hardened  on  the  printed 
page."  Sometimes  the  accent  of  the  preacher  is  indeed 
very  distinct.  Take  the  following  extract  as  an  illustra- 
tion : — 

"my  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee,"  etc.,  etc. 

Let  us  make  just  one  more  application  of  this  text,  and  see 
how  the  softening  shadow  of  it  will  come  over  the  soul  that  is  in 
trouble. 

But  what  picture  shall  we  take  from  among  the  children  and 
the  scenes  of  sorrow  ?  In  a  suffering  world  like  this  where  the 
sufferers  are  so  many  and  the  sorrows  are  so  various,  it  may  seem 
almost  a  species  of  favoritism  to  select  one,  or  even  one  of  a  class, 
for  special  human  sympathy,  or  as  the  object  of  any  peculiar 
grace  of  God. 

Shall  we  take  the  man  with  the  sunny  face,  the  voluble 
tongue,  the  ready,  helpful  hand,  who  yet  at  times  has  a  sorrow 
like  death  weighing  on  his  heart  ?  Or  shall  we  take  the  physi- 
cal sufferer,  who  in  sheer  pain,  that  has  continued  for  long,  and 
is  not  Ukely  to  depart  until  the  spirit  does,  will  have  suffered  a 
thousand  deaths,  as  to  pain,  before  death  comes  ?  I  remember 
travelling  once  in  a  railway  carriage  opposite  to  a  gentleman 
who,  at  the  first  glance,  seemed  well,  but  who,  in  a  deeper  view, 
showed  suffering  on  every  feature  of  his  face  ;  and  sometimes  as 
the  carriage  rounded  the  curves  of  the  line  and  became  un- 
steady, a  low  moan  of  anguish  would  escape  involuntarily  from 
his  lips.    Yet  the  man  was  going  about  his  business.    It  is  some 


The  Preacher  a  Sacred  Pathologist     405 

years  since  I  saw  him,  but  he  may  be  living  and  suffering  still. 
If  so,  I  hope  he  knows  and  draws  from  the  grace  of  Christ, 
which  is  sufficient  for  him.  Or  shall  we  take  the  widow  in  her 
weeds  of  woe,  with  a  heart  in  tears  all  day  long,  hardly  ceasing 
from  its  grieving  even  in  sleep  ?  Or  the  children  at  their  even- 
ing prayer,  saddened  and  thrown  into  a  child's  perplexity,  by 
the  thought  of  two  fathers  in  heaven  ?  Or  the  widow  who  never 
wore  the  weeds  of  woe,  but  who  has  gone  through  the  bitterness 
of  death  as  the  victim  of  an  unfaithful  love  ?  Or  the  bankrupt 
who  retains  his  integrity,  but  endures  a  thousand  slights  and 
disadvantages  because  he  has  lost  his  money  and  his  place  ?  Or 
shall  we  take  any  of  those  sensitive,  shrinking  souls,  which 
seem  to  have  been  made  for  suffering — who,  at  any  rate,  have  a 
special  faculty  of  making  or  extracting  it  from  the  whole  of  this 
human  life  ?  Or  shall  we  enter,  with  silent  footsteps  and  hushed 
breath,  one  of  those  rooms  (and  there  are  a  thousand  such  around 
us  in  this  great  city,  which  shows  us  nothing  but  its  splendours, 
and  lets  us  hear  nothing  but  the  roar  of  its  life),  where  suffer- 
ing is  deepening  and  dropping  into  the  arms  of  death  ? 

We  had  better  not  select.  Let  every  sufferer,  whether  by  the 
body  or  by  the  mind,  or  by  the  circumstances,  hear  for  himself, 
and  gauge  all  his  trouble  while  he  hears ;  then  let  him  apply  the 
sure  word  of  promise  to  its  lengths  and  breadths,  and  depths 
and  heights ;  then  let  him  carry  it  home  to  the  aged,  the  sick, 
the  feeble,  and  to  all  whom  it  may  concern,  as  the  words  of  a 
God  who  cannot  lie,  as  the  assurance  of  a  Saviour  who  cannot 
but  pity  and  help,  as  a  title  to  a  legacy  of  which  they  are  all 
made  heirs  if  they  will  only  claim  and  inherit,  as  a  shelter  for 
every  path,  an  assuagement  for  every  sorrow,  a  canopy  for  every 
sufferer's  bed,  a  sweet  soul  secret  for  life  and  for  death  to  every 
trusting  soul  however  troubled — "My  grace  is  sufficient  for 
iheer 

"  For  thee."  If  you  lose  the  personal  application,  you  lose  all. 
It  is  for  thee.  I  would  that  you  would  now  enter  into  your 
closet^ — you  may  do  so  even  here  in  an  act  of  faith — and  that  you 
would  shut  to  the  door  enclosing  only  the  text  and  *'  thee." 
This  text  is  not  for  a  world,  but  for  a  man.  .  There  are  some 
texts  which  are  first  for  a  world  and  then  for  a  man.    This  is 


4o6  On  the  Formation  of  Style j  etc. 

first  for  a  man  and  then  for  a  world.  "  Sufficient  for  thee."  For 
thee,  young  pilgrim,  in  the  first  pauses  of  thy  celestial  way ! 
For  thee,  strong  runner,  wearied  now,  and  fainting  on  the  mid- 
way plain  I  For  thee,  tempted  spirit,  struggling  in  the  network 
of  circumstance,  and  watching  for  the  saving  providence,  and 
the  delivering  hour  !  For  thee,  sufferer  in  any  way,  by  pain,  or 
loss,  or  change,  or  death !  And  for  thee,  whom  our  voice  can 
not  reach — may  God,  the  revealer  of  secrets,  tell  it  to  thee,  thou 
dying  one — already  half  away,  and  may  thy  soul,  composed  in 
its  deep  consolations,  and  borne  up  by  its  immortal  strength, 
have  safe  passage  thus,  as  in  the  very  arms  of  the  grace,  into  His 
presence  whose  grace  it  is  ! 

"  For  thee."  I  say  again  for  thee.  Whoever  thou  art,  "  for 
thee."  It  is  for  thee  now  to  change  the  pronoun  and  say,  with  a 
wonderful  grateful  heart — "  For  me.  To-day,  and  every  day, 
from  this  time  forth,  and  even  for  evermore,  for  me ;  His  grace 
is  sufficient  for  me." 

Thus  when  we  frequently  speak  of  a  sermon  as  artless, 
we  do  so  as  knowing  that  the  preacher  was  all  the  time 
feeling  the  pulse  of  his  congregation — in  his  study  has  his 
eye  on  many  a  pew,  and  watches  in  spirit  the  effect  of 
every  word.  There  must  have  been  a  long  habituation  of 
watchfulness  and  skill  in  the  moral  value  or  sentences  be- 
fore that  ease  which  perhaps  is  possessed  now  could  be  the 
gift  of  the  preacher.  There  are  sudden  touches  of  feeling 
— there  are  words  starting  round  the  comers  of  the  sermon 
unawares  that  compel  the  tears  involuntarily  to  the  eyes. 
The  fancy  is  more  free  in  the  following  quotation  than  in 
most  of  Dr.  Raleigh's  discourses.  But  some  of  those 
tones  of  feeling  I  have  mentioned  are  heard  aU  along,  and 
deepen  towards  the  close.     It  is  from  the  sermon — 

LITE   A   STRUCTUllE. 

TJiere  is  a  time  given  tofinisli  the  icorlc — And  when  the  limit  of 
that  time  shall  come,  not  one  stone  more  can  be  laid  by  the 
builder,  not  one  touch  more  given  to  tlic  edifice  in  any  of  its 


Alexander  HaleigK  407 

parts  before  the  trial.  "  I  must  work  the  work  of  him  that  sent 
me  while  it  is  day :  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work." 
And  no  man  can  tell  when  the  night  shall  come  in  any  particular 
instance.  Of  course  we  have  the  general  laws  and  probabilities 
of  life.  God  means  us  to  know  these  laws  and  probabilities,  and 
He  means  us  to  guide  ourselves  by  them  as  far  as  we  can.  But 
clear  above  them  all  He  holds  His  own  sovereignty,  and  tell  us  as 
we  work  to  look  at  that.  His  are  "  the  times  and  seasons,"  the 
fountains  of  life,  and  the  issues  from  death.  He  alone  commands 
and  ordains  the  "  time  to  be  born,"  and  the  "  time  to  die." 
Those  times  are  not  alike  in  any  two  instances.  In  this,  as  in 
so  many  other  points  of  his  moral  administration  in  this  world, 
there  is  the  greatest  possible  diversity ;  and  mystery  as  well,  so 
profound  that  our  intelligence  is  utterly  incompetent  to  solve  it. 
There  is  not  a  man  out  of  heaven  who  could  tell  us  with  any 
certainty  all  the  reasons  of  an  infant's  death,  all  the  reasons  of 
an  old  man's  life  on  into  second  infancy.  Philosophers,  and 
new-school  Christians  will  make  a  little  prattle  about  the  natural 
laws.  But  all  that  we  can  be  told  about  the  natural  laws  hardly 
touches  the  moral  mysteries ;  and  Avith  all  these  mysteries  hang- 
ing over  human  life,  and  darkening  into  impenetrable  gloom,  if 
we  try  to  discover  the  exact  period  of  its  close,  it  is  a  wonderful 
relief  that  every  one  who  is  working  rightly  can  look  up  to  the 
great  ruler  and  arbiter  of  life,  and  say  in  humble  trust,  "  My 
times  are  in  thy  hands." 

Look  at  the  tombstones  in  a  grave-yard.  You  will  see  every 
age  recorded  there,  from  the  infant  of  days  to  the  sinner  or  the 
saint  an  hundred  years  old.  Remember,  as  you  read,  that  every 
name  recorded  (and  what  myriads  are  mouldering  in  the  dust 
with  no  record  above  ground)  is  the  name  of  a  builder  who  in 
the  day  given  to  him,  began  and  finished  a  building  that  will  be 
tried  by  fire  ;  and  then  look  up  and  be  thankful  for  that  uner- 
ring providence  which  settled  birth  and  death  for  each  so  wisely 
and  so  justly  that,  if  they  were  all  to  live  again,  the  birth--day 
and  burial-day  for  each  would  be  exactly  the  same. 

Here  is  a  stone  that  tells  that  an  infant  was  born,  and,  after 
wrestling  with  mortality  for  but  a  few  days,  died  and  was 
buried.     And  it  may  seem  as  though  the  soul  of  that  infant  had 


4o8  On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

but  fluttered  across  the  atmosphere  of  this  world  without  alight- 
ing here,  as,  looking  from  your  window,  you  sometimes  see  a 
dove  flash  across  the  sky.  Depend  upon  it,  that  little  history 
was  the  building  of  a  temple,  and  when  it  was  finished  the 
angels  carried  it  away. 

Here  is  a  stone  that  marks  the  resting-place  of  one  who  was  a 
little  worker.  He  had  just  begun  to  work.  He  had  thought  of  God 
as  the  great  Father  of  the  world.  He  had  looked  to  Jesus  the 
good  Shepherd.  He  had  begun  to  feel  a  strange  power  in  the 
cross,  which  was  drawing  him  away  from  sin  and  from  little 
selfish  ways,  and  filling  his  heart  with  the  purpose  to  live  to 
Christ  all  his  days.  These  mere  shapings  and  scantlings  of  work 
there  were — a  little  serious  thought,  a  little  faith,  a  fluttering  of 
love  in  the  breast,  some  tiny  steps  of  following  after  the  great 
master :  nothing,  as  some  would  say,  to  make  a  finished  life — 
mere  shapings  and  young  endeavors  after  higher  things — some- 
what like  the  houses  you  see  children  building  on  the  sand. 
You  are  far  mistaken.  That  little  workman  will  never  need  to 
be  ashamed.  In  his  simple  faith  he  found  the  Rock  of  Ages. 
In  his  wondering  love  he  soared  upwards  to  the  fatherhood  of 
God,  and,  when  the  home-call  reached  him,  he  was  ready,  he  had 
finished  a  temple-  life. 

This  is  a  maiden's  name.  She  was  young,  she  was  fair,  she 
was  looking  to  the  altar  and  the  bridal-day,  and  lo,  death  came 
unbidden,  but  not  to  her  unwelcome,  for  he  led  her  uj)  to  the 
higher  espousals  of  heaven.  Father  and  mother  and  sorrowing 
lover  think  of  the  nipping  of  the  flower,  and  they  have  written 
on  the  stone  that  "  her  sun  went  down  while  it  was  yet  day." 
But  there  are  other  writings  which  they  see  not.  The  angels 
have  written  *'  eventide  ;"  the  Saviour  has  written  "  finished." 

Here  lies  a  merchant  who  was  in  the  high  noon  of  life  and  in 
the  full  stretch  of  his  powers.  He  was  not  only  gaining  wealth, 
but  spreading  it  among  others.  His  name  was  a  synonyme  for 
truth  and  justice  and  honor — and  all  around  these  are  the  begin- 
nings he  had  made.  Nothing  was  finished.  Yes,  all  is  finished, 
and  he  lies  here. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  grave  of  the  old  pilgrim  who  re- 
mained lingering  here  long  after  those  who  loved  him  dearly, 


Alexander  Haleigh.  409 

and  venerated  every  hair  of  bis  grey  head,  would  have  been  glad 
for  his  own  sake  to  see  him  go  home.  The  shock  of  corn 
seemed  more  than  ripe— the  grain  was  dropping  on  the  ground. 
He  was  blind,  he  was  deaf,  he  was  in  pain,  he  was  as  helpless  as 
a  child.  Would  it  not  have  been  better  that  he  had  gone  some 
years  sooner  ?  No,  no.  It  was  the  right  time.  It  was  his  even- 
tide. He  needed  all  his  days  to  finish  the  temple,  and  all  his  ex 
periences — the  blindness,  and  the  deafness,  and  the  pain,  and 
the  sweet  simplicities  of  the  second  childhood — he  needed  all. 
And  even  the  infirmities  of  temper,  it  may  be,  as  well  as  of  body, 
which  mingled  with  his  last  experiences,  were  in  some  way 
used  by  Him  who  is  wonderful  in  counsel  and  excellent  in  work- 
ing, for  the  completing  of  His  own  gracious  work.  I  say,  we 
cannot  be  too  thankful  that  amid  all  the  diversities  and  uncer- 
tainties and  mysteries  of  this  life,  afiecting  its  beginning,  its 
progress,  and  its  close,  we  can  look  up  while  we  build  to  that 
wise  and  loving  Providence  which  presides  over  all.  And  we 
cannot  too  often  or  too  seriously  remember  that  the  great  Master 
of  that  providence  holds  our  life  fully,  constantly  in  His  hands, 
and  will  never  give  it  into  ours.  He  will  never  tell  us  when  our 
work  is  to  end ;  and  its  recompense  is  to  come.  But  he  tells  us 
this,  that  we  are  building  day  by  day.  He  tells  us  that,  while 
recognizing  the  uncertainty  which  to  us  hangs  around  the  times 
and  the  seasons,  we  ought  even  more  earnestly  to  recognize  the 
great  certainty  of  a  continuous  and  accumulating  moral  life. 
Bay  by  day,  hour  by  hour  the  work  goes  on — well  or  ill — to  His 
praise  or  to  His  shame.  We  must  build.  We  are  building. 
We  are  very  apt  sometimes  to  think  that  we  have  done  nothing, 
and  that  is  the  worst  of  it.  That  is  not  the  worst  of  it.  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  we  have  done  something  very  poor  or  very 
ill.  I  come  home  at  night,  and  say,  with  sad  relenting,  as  the 
shadows  of  reflection  deepen  around  me,  "  I  have  done  nothing 
at  the  great  building  to-day !"  O  yes,  but  I  have.  I  have  been 
putting  in  "the  wood,  the  hay,  the  stubble,"  where  "the  silver 
and  the  gold,  and  the  precious  stones  "  should  have  been.  I 
have  been  piling  up  fuel  for  the  last  fires  in  my  own  life.  I  can- 
not be  a  cipher  even  for  one  day.  I  must  be  a  man.  Nay,  I 
must  be  a  Christian  man,  faithful  or  unfaithful.  I  must  grow, 
18 


4 1  o  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc, 

and  build,  and  work,  and  live  in  some  way.  Oh,  then,  let  me 
see  that  I  live  for  Christ,  that  I  grow  into  His  image,  and  that  I 
work  a  work  in  the  moral  construction  of  my  own  life  which 
angels  will  crown  and  God  will  bless. 

One  of  the  first  things  essential  to  sermons  is  natural 
symmetry.  The  architecture  of  the  Congregational  ser- 
mon has  undergone,  during  the  last  half  century,  as  much 
change  as  have  the  buildings  in  which  they  were  delivered. 
The  sermons  of  the  Church  of  England,  for  the  .most  part, 
hold  on  the  same  routine,  but  the  sermons  of  the  Congre- 
gational pulpit  have  undergone  a  change,  and  the  change 
has  been  improvement;  the  method  of  these  sermons  is  not 
textual;  the  symmetry  is  not  always  of  the  order  of  the 
scaffold,  we  do  not  see  it;  it  is  like  the  symmetry  of  a 
tree,  it  is  hidden  by  the  fohage,  but  then  we  know  that  the 
symmetry  is  there  by  the  foliage.  We  always  desire,  in 
criticism,  to  admire  the  excellence  of  the  method  present, 
rather  than  to  utter  depreciations  because  of  the  method 
absent.  The  able  preacher  is  not  always  merely  logical  in 
his  method;  he  does  not  throw  out  from  his  text  the  coil 
of  thought;  his  purpose  may  be  emotional,  and  thought  is 
calm  and  quiet  with  him.  The  great  and  good  preacher 
labors  at  no  prolonged  illustrations,  never  overwhelms  his 
hearers  with  the  dazzling  brilliancy  of  rhetorical  color;  by- 
touch  on  touch  he  achieves  his  end;  by  sustained  and 
coherent,  but  yet  rapid  movements,  and  throws  open  the 
doors  of  many  hearts  and  accompHshes  all.  Dr.  Ealeigh's 
genius  is  reflective  and  meditative,  and  the  symmetry 
therefore  in  harmony  with  this;  it  suggests  a. recurrence  of 
A.  K.  H.  B's  weU-known  paper  "Concerning  the  art  of 
putting  things; "  certainly  an  art  much  needing  study  in  the 
study  of  sermon-making.  We  have  met  with  no  sermons 
lately  in  our  own  language,  so  reminding  us  of  those  touch- 
ing and  beautiful  ones  of  Herman  Hooker,  of  Boston,  in 
the  United  States.     A  very  happy  illustration  of  this  sym- 


Alexander  Raleigh. — Natural  Sijmmetry.   411 

metry  of  which  I  have  spoken,  organic  symmetry,  we  have 
in  the  sermon  on  the  Kingdom  and  the  Keys,  "Fear  not;  I 
am  he  that  Hveth  and  was  dead; "  &c.,  &c.  The  quotation 
is  lengthly,  but  it  shall  be  given: — 

"  Fear  not  "  for  thyself.  I  will  wash  thee  thoroughly  from 
thine  iniquities,  and  cleanse  thee  from  thy  sins,  create  in  thee  a 
clean  heart,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  thee,  give  thee  the 
joys  of  my  salvation,  and  uphold  thee  with  my  free  spirit.  I 
will  console  thee  in  trouble,  strengthen  thee  for  duty,  open  a 
way  for  thee  amid  life's  perplexities,  jDitcli  thy  tent  in  safe 
places,  and  be  around  thy  tabernacle  with  my  sheltering  pres- 
ence until  it  is  taken  down,  and  thou  art  called  to  the  house  not 
made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.  Thy  path  may  seem 
rugged  and  cheerless ;  but  it  is  open  and  onward ;  and  I  will 
pass  with  thee  Myself  along  all  its  length,  nor  leave  thee  in  the 
shades  which  hang  over  its  close.  I  will  be  with  thee  in  the 
dark  valley  to  support  thy  trembling  steps  with  My  rod  and 
staff;  I  will  softly  unlock  the  awful  door,  and  usher  thee  into 
Hades,  where  a  thousand  sights  of  beauty  will  fill  thy  delighted 
eyes,  and  a  thousand  voices  of  welcome  will  hail  thy  coming. 

"Fear  not"  for  any  among  thy  kindred  and  acquaintance  of 
the  same  family  of  God.  There  is  a  shield  over  the  head  of 
each,  a  providence  as  watchful  of  every  one  as  if  that  one  alone 
were  a  dweller  on  the  earth.  When  they  pass  through  the 
waters  they  shall  not  overflow  them,  through  the  flame  it  shall 
not  kindle  upon  them.  While  they  hve  they  are  Mine;  "they 
live  unto  the  Lord."  When  they  die  they  are  Mine ;  "  they  die 
unto  the  Lord  " — living  and  dying,  they  are  the  Lord's.  Fear 
not  with  a  slavish  unfilial  fear,  for  any  whom  thou  lovest.  They 
are  dear  to  you,  are  they  less  dear  to  Me  ?  Thy  brother  is  dead, 
but  he  will  be  alive  again.  Thy  sister  is  lost,  but  she  shall  be 
found. 

"  Fear  not,"  amid  changes  however  startling,  circumstances 
however  unexpected  ;  for  I  am  not  a  mere  watcher  over  a  broken 
and  lawless  world,  mending,  and  checking,  and  trying  to  save 
something  from  the  wreck !  I  am  the  perfect  ruler  of  a  perfect 
providence,  setting  kings  on  their  thrones,  and  watching  spar- 


412  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

rows  in  their  fall ;  preserving  your  mightiest  interests,  and  num- 
bering the  hairs  of  your  head  ! 

Brethren,  it  is  this  "  fear  not,"  which  often  we  most  need  to 
hear ;  we  do  not  exercise  ourselves  in  great  matters — we  can 
trust  these  to  Him,  for  we  feel  they  are  too  high  for  us  ;  but  we 
do  painfully  exercise  ourselves  in  lesser  things  as  if  we  had  the 
sole  charge  of  them.  We  should  not  for  a  moment  presume  to 
grasp  the  keys ;  but  we  do  presume,  in  our  thoughts,  to  dictate 
when  and  where,  and  how  they  shall  be  used.  We  strive,  often- 
times almost  unconsciously  perhaps,  to  re-arrange  and  re-ordain 
particular  circumstances,  and  even  whole  scenes  in  our  life  and 
in  the  lives  of  others.  And  with  a  still  more  importunate  and 
sorrowful  eagerness  do  we  seek  to  have  some  power  in  arrang- 
ing for  life's  close.  We  W'Ould  not  dare  to  take  the  key  of  death 
into  our  own  hand,  but  we  would  touch  it  while  it  lies  in  His. 
Not  noWj  or  Not  therCj  or  Not  thus^  we  are  always  saying. 

Not  now,  we  say,  when  the  father  is  called  to  leave  the  family 
of  which  he  is  the  whole  stay.  "  Let  him  live,  let  a  few  weeks 
elapse,  let  his  family  be  provided  for,  let  his  work  be  done  ! " 
It  is  done,  is  the  answer.  His  fatherless  children  are  provided 
for ;  I  have  taught  him  to  leave  them  with  Me.  ''  The  Father 
of  the  fatherless,  the  Husband  of  the  widow,  is  God  in  His  holy 
habitation." 

Not  now^  we  say,  when  the  mother  has  heard  the  home-call, 
and  with  a  calmness  and  courage  greater  than  those  of  the  sol- 
dier in  battle,  is  rising  above  all  her  cares,  and  becoming  a  child 
again,  at  the  threshold  of  the  heavenly  home.  Oh,  not  now  ! 
Who  will  check  the  waywardness,  encourage  the  virtues,  receive 
the  confidences,  soothe  the  little  sorrows,  and  train  the  loves  of 
those  infant  hearts  ?  Who  will  teach  the  evening  prayer,  and 
listen  to  the  Sabbath  hymn  ?  Who  can  give  a  mother's  care 
and  feel  a  mother's  love  ?  I,  said  the  Shepherd,  I  will  gather 
the  lambs  with  Mine  aim,  and  carry  them  in  3fy  bosom.  I  will 
forget  no  prayer  of  the  d3dng  mother's  heart.  I  will  treasure  in 
My  heart  the  yearnings  of  her  life  over  her  children,  and  the  un- 
utterable compassions  of  her  dying  hour  ;  and  when  many  years 
have  sped,  and  she  has  been  long  in  heaven,  these  children  will 
remember  her  in  their  holiest  and  happiest  moments,  and  by 


Natural  Symmetry  in  Sermons,  413 

their  walk  and  their  work  will  be  proving  that  she  did  not  live 
in  vain,  that  she  ^^Jinished  the  work  that  was  given  her  to  do." 

Or,  we  say,  "  N'ot  tliere^''^  oh,  not  there  !  Away  on  the  sea — a 
thousand  mijes  from  land — let  him  not  die  there,  and  be  drop- 
ped into  the  unfathomed  grave,  where  the  unstable  waves  must 
be  his  only  monument,  and  the  winds  the  sole  mom'ners  of  the 
place !  Or  not  in  some  distant  city  or  far-oflf  land — strangers 
around  his  bed,  strangers  closing  his  eyes,  and  then  carrying 
him  to  a  stranger's  grave.  Let  him  come  home  and  die  amid 
the  whisperings  and  breathings  of  the  old  unquenchable  love. 
"  He  is  going  home,"  is  the  answer,  and  going  by  the  best  and 
only  way.  "  I  can  open  the  gate  beautiful  in  any  part  of  the 
earth  or  sea.  I  can  set  up  the  mystic  ladder,  the  top  of  which 
reaches  to  heaven,  in  the  loneliest  island,  at  the  furthest  ends 
of  the  earth,  and  your  friends  will  flee  to  the  shelter  of  My 
presence  all  the  more  fully  because  yours  is  far  away." 

Or,  we  say.  "  JVot  thus,^''  not  through  such  agonies  of  body, 
or  faintings  of  spirit,  or  tremblings  of  faith — not  in  unconscious- 
ness— not  without  dying  testimonies.  Let  there  be  outward  as 
well  as  inward  peace.  Let  mention  be  made  of  Thy  goodness. 
Let  there  be  foretellings  and  forcshewings  of  the  glory  to  which, 
as  we  trust,  they  are  going.  Oh,  shed  down  the  light,  the  fra- 
grancy  of  heaven,  upon  their  djdng  bed  !  The  answer  is,  "  They 
are  there,  and  you  are  so  dull  of  sense  that  you  perceive  them 
not.  Your  friend  is  filled  with  the  *  peace  that  passeth  under- 
standing,' and  safe  in  the  everlasting  arms." 

Thus,  brethren,  the  tiine,  and  the  place^  and  the  circumstances^ 
are  all  arranged  by  the  wisdom  and  the  will  of  him  who  holds 
the  keys,  and  we  could  not,  even  if  we  had  our  own  will  and 
way,  make  any  thing  better  than  it  is  in  the  perfect  plan.  Bet- 
ter !  everything  would  be  worse — inconceivably  worse  if  ice  had 
the  keys.  Let  us  trust  them,  with  a  loyal  loving  trust,  with  Him 
who  graciously  says  to  us  "  Fear  not ; "  one  who,  in  this  as  in 
all  other  things,  will  treat  us  and  give  to  us  according  to  our 
faith. 

"  Fear  not."  "  The  sinners  in  Zion  are  afraid ;  fearfulness 
surprises  the  hypocrites."  It  is  in  vain  to  say '' Fear  not"  to 
one  who  has  in  his  nature  all  the  elements  on  which  fear  feeds 


414  ^^  ^^^  Formation  of  Style,  etc. 

and  lives,  a  sinful  conscience,  an  unloving  heart.  And  the 
Saviour  does  not  say  "  fear  not "  to  any  such.  He  says,  "  Enter 
into  the  rock,  and  hide  thee  in  the  dust,/<9r/^^r  of  the  Lord, 
and  for  the  glory  of  his  majesty.""  "  Tremble,  ye  that  are  at 
ease ;  be  troubled,  ye  careless  ones."  He  says  in  effect,  "  Let 
your  heart  be  troubled,  also  let  it  be  afraid ;  ye  do  not  believe 
in  God,  ye  do  not  believe  in  me  ! " 

I  may  refer  to  another  master  of  this  art  of  natural 
symmetry — ^master  at  the  same  time  of  this  accent  of  con- 
viction, to  which  I  have  already  referred,  in  James  Pab- 
soNs;  we  have  indeed  but  few  of  his  sermons  which  have 
the  stamp  of  his  own  finished  approval.  Many  of  those, 
however,  which  have  been  published,  without  his  approba- 
tion, from  the  reports  of  short-hand  writers,  are  among 
the  best,  and  hearers  can  attest  their  faithfulness;  perhaps 
they  give  evidence  too  clearly  of  the  labor  of  the  artist, 
and  seem  to  testify  to  the  possession  of  a  nature  never 
likely  to  be  betrayed,  by  passion  or  impulse,  but  they  also, 
without  any  efforts  at  recondite  thought  or  brilhancy  of 
imagination,  group  effectively  together  images,  sometimes 
in  crowds,  hurrying  rapidly  upon  each  other,  yet  each 
preserved  clear,  incisive,  and  distinct;  and  no  preacher  bet- 
ter illustrates  the  art  and  order  of  a  sermon,  and  few  have 
made  simphcity  of  statement  more  effective  and  sometimes 
overwhelming.  But  no  sermons  remind  us  more  distinctly 
that  the  sermon  printed  can  never  be  the  sermon  we 
heard  preached.  And  this  is  as  it  should  be.  The  ser- 
mon must  have  a  style  of  its  own,  it  is  not  intended  for 
reading;  it  is  not  for  a  book;  in  the  printed  page  its  diffase- 
ness,  even  its  commonplace  is  as  intolerable  as  in  the  pul- 
pit it  was  even  delightful  while  the  man  was  speaking;  it 
was  his  business  to  be  in  possession  of  his  hearers,  to  hold 
their  attention  entirely  possessed.  The  argument  in  a 
sermon  should  not  be  a  mere  topical  statement,  but  a  series 
of  obvious  inferences;  how  many  preachers  err  hi  prcjoar 


James  Parsons  Illustrated.  415 

ing  as  they  would  prepare  a  thesis  for  a  college,  or  a  paper 
for  a  philosophical  society,  forgetting  that*  a  congrega- 
tion is  no  more  a  literary  society,  than  the  Bible  is  a 
"  Kritic  of  Kant; "  our  sermons  partake  too  much  the  air 
of  a  special  pleading;  it  is  a  fine  saying  of  Claude  that  the 
pulpit  is  the  seat  of  good  natural  sense,  of  the  good  sense 
of  good  men.  Every  sermon,  indeed,  should  contaia  an 
argument,  for  all  persuasion  is  an  argument,  but  the  ulti- 
mate purpose  wiU  be  best  served  if  you  do  not  allow  this 
design  too  obviously  to  appear.  But  I  refer  especially  to 
aU  this  as  illustrated  iu  some  forms  of  the  accent  of  con- 
viction, and  statement,  enunciated  thus  clearly,  scriptu- 
rally,  simply,  perhaps  too  affluently  in  fancy,  in  reading — 
but  you  may  beHeve  how  effective  in  the  dehvery — the  fol- 
lowiag  passage  from  James  Parsons  on 

SIN    AS    THE    CAUSE    OF    THE    DIFFUSION    AND    UNIVERSALITY    OF 
DEATH. 

"  Death  passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned." 
And  so  it  follows  in  a  subsequent  verse,  "  Nevertheless,  death 
reigned  from  Adam  to  Moses,  even  over  them  that  had  not 
sinned  after  the  similitude  of  Adam's  transgression,  who  is  the 
figure  of  him  that  was  to  come.  By  the  ofience  of  one,  judgment 
came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation."  In  Adam  all  die ;  all  men 
are  sinners,  and  therefore  against  all  men  the  penalty  is  still 
standing.  Corporeal  death,  that  event  which  separates  the  soul 
fi-om  the  body,  and  which  then  dismisses  the  body  as  the  victim 
of  putrefaction,  to  moulder  back  to  primeval  dust,  is  a  penalty 
which  has  been  exacted  and  must  be  exacted  from  all  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  Adam.  What  man  is  he  that  liveth  and  that 
shall  not  see  death  ?  "  We  must  all  die,  and  be  like  water  spilt 
on  the  ground,  which  cannot  be  gathered  up  again."  Rich  and 
poor  shall  go  down  to  the  grave,  and  worms  alike  shall  cover 
them."  It  is  appointed  unto  all  men  once  to  die.  The  ages  at 
which  the  allotment  is  suffered  vary.  There  is  the  child  at  the 
mother's  breast,  or  in  the  nurse's  arms ;  there  is  the  youth  in  the 

*^*  Manse  of  Mastland. 


41 6         On  the  Formation  of  Style,  etc, 

spring-tide  of  gaiety  and  buoyant  spirits;  there  is  ^^  full-grown 
manvQ.  the  maturity  of  v/isdom  and  of  power;  there  are  the  agedi 
bending  under  the  decrepitude  and  infirmity  of  long  protracted 
years.  The  method  in  which  the  allotment  is  suffered  varies. 
The  convulsions  of  nature ;  war ;  famine ;  accident ;  disease, 
slow  and  sudden.  And  yet,  my  brethren,  amid  the  variety  of 
modes,  and  the  variety  of  seasons,  the  path  is  but  one  and  the 
same.  All  these  things  are  but  so  many  avenues  leading  down 
to  the  one  narrow  house,  which  has  been  appointed  for  all  liv- 
ing ;  and  never  should  the  subject  of  death  be  reviewed  by  our- 
selves, and  never  should  the  subject  of  death  be  pondered  by 
ourselves,  without  viewing  it  and  pondering  it  in  connexion 
with  sin.  Sin,,  the  invariable  antecedent ;  death,  the  invariable 
consequence!  Sin  the  cause;  death  the  effect !  The  demerit  of 
the  one  producing  the  desolation  of  the  other !  Ye  children  of 
mortality,  forget  it  not — approve  it  and  apply  it.  Sin  formed 
the  volcano,  the  earthquake,  the  hurricane,  the  pestilence  which 
mows  down  the  population  of  cities  and  empires  !  Sbi  inflicts 
every  pang  !  Sin  nerves  every  death-throe  !  Sin  stains  and 
blanches  every  corpse  !  Sin  weaves  every  shroud !  Sin  shapes 
every  coffin !  Sin  digs  every  grave !  Siri  writes  every  ej)itaph ! 
Sin  paints  every  hatchment !  Sin  sculptures  every  monument  I 
Sin  feeds  every  worm !  The  waste  and  the  havoc  of  centuries 
that  are  gone,  and  the  waste  and  the  havoc  of  centuries  yet  to 
come,  all  reverberate  in  one  awful  voice,  "  Death  has  passed  upon 
all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned ! " 

Spiritual  death,  my  brethren,  which  consists,  as  we  have  ob- 
served, in  the  alienation  of  the  human  heart  from  God,  and 
which  the  apostle  has  emphatically  described  in  the  second  chap- 
ter of  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  as  being  "  dead  in  trespasses 
and  sins,"  constitutes  the  state  of  every  man  by  nature.  Every 
man  in  consequence  of  that  state  of  spiritual  death,  is  also  in 
peril  of  proceeding  to  receive  the  recompense  of  it  in  the  agonies 
of  death  eternal.  It  will  be  observed  upon  this  important  sub- 
ject that  there  cannot  be  the  least  question  or  doubt ;  "  For 
(says  the  apostle)  as  many  as  have  sinned  without  law," — that 
is  to  say,  without  being  placed  within  the  external  domination 
of  the  written  law  of  the  Almighty — "  as  many  as  have  sinned 


The  Style  of  James  Parsons.  417 

without  law  shall  also  perish  without  law  :  and  as  many  as  have 
sinned  in  the  law" — that  is,  with  the  knowledge  of  the  written 
revelation  of  God — "  shall  be  judged  by  the  law.  For  not  the 
hearers  of  the  law  are  just  before  God,  but  the  doers  of  the  law 
shall  be  justified.  For  when  the  Gentiles,  which  have  not  the 
law,  do  by  nature  the  things  contained  in  the  law,  these,  having 
not  the  law,  are  a  law  unto  themselves:  w^hich  show  the  works 
of  the  law  written  in  their  hearts,  their  conscience  also  bearing 
witness,  and  their  thoughts  the  mean  while  accusing,  or  else 
excusing  one  another ;  in  the  day  when  God  shall  judge  the  se- 
crets of  men,  by  Jesus  Christ,  according  to  my  gospel."  My 
hearers  attend :  "  By  the  deeds  of  the  law  there  shall  no  flesh  be 
justified ;"  then  they  must  be  condemned.  "  All  have  sinned, 
and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God."  If  then  you  have  come 
short  of  the  glory  of  God,  you  must  be  lost;  it  cannot  be  denied, 
nor  be  disputed.  /  tell  to  every  man  now  present^  that  he  is  guilty 
of  sinning  against  the  Almighty — that  if  there  be  no  intervention 
of  mercy  so  mighty  and  so  majestic  as  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
justice,  to  quench  her  fire,  and  sheathe  her  sword — if  there  be 
not  mercy,  free,  boundless,  omnipotent,  and  eternal,  every  human 
being  will  stand  before  the  judgment-bar  of  God  to  receive  the 
sentence  of  his  condemnation.  He  must  be  banished  for  ever 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  and  from  the  glory  of  his  power ; 
and  he  must  go  down  to  those  abodes  of  torment  where  there 
are  agonies  unspeakable  and  inconceivable ;  where  the  smoke 
of  torment  ascendeth  up  for  ever  and  for  ever.  Go,  my  hearers^ 
to  the  brink  of  eternity,  contemplate  in  imagination  the  scenes, 
of  that  horrible  pit  which  the  word  of  revelation  has  presented 
to  your  view — contemplate  the  worm  that  dieth  not — contem- 
plate the  fire  that  has  been  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  an- 
gels —  contemplate  the  blackness  of  darkness  —  contemplate 
the  smoke  of  torment  that  ascendeth  up  for  ever  and  ever ! 
What  was  it  that  gave  to  that  worm  its  fang  but  sin? 
AVhat  was  it  that  gave  to  that  fire  its  intensity  but  sin  f  What 
was  it  that  gave  to  that  blackness  its  shadows  but  sin  ?  What 
was  it  that  gave  to  that  torment  its  woe  but  sin  ?  The  voice  is 
from  the  abyss  uttering  one  wild  cry,  "  It  was  sin  ;  it  was  sin  ; 
IT  WAS  sin!  Man  t^(?wZ(Z  sin,  and  therefore  man  must  suffer?" 
There  is  a  rigid  equity  between  the  one  and  the  other. 
18* 


41 8         On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

"  Non  fiimum,  sed  lucem" — "  Not  smoke  but  light."  This 
is  a  motto  to  take  into  the  pulpit.  If  I  cannot  give  light 
there,  I  had  far  better  keep  away  ;  or,  if  there,  I  had  far 
better  read  a  chapter  or  a  text  and  then  be  silent ;  there 
may  be  a  hope  that  this  will  make  its  way.  When  we  go 
into  a  Papist  place  of  worship  we  are  often  steeped  in  a 
stench  of  musk  and  aloes;  "Oh!"  we  say,  "would  that 
there  were  only  real  human  words  here,  real  human  feehngs 
here  ;  these  stenches  are  not  the  prayers  of  the  saints." 
"We  sit  stiU,  and  presently  rises  the  long,  almost  inarticu- 
late, and  inaudible  mumbhng  and  muttering  of  the  Latin. 
"  Oh !"  we  say,  "  this  is  but  an  unknown  tongue,"  and  what 
is  that  better  which  is  but  a  smoke  of  speech  ?  It  is  so  of 
many  preachers,  that  aU  they  have  contrived  to  do  by  their 
words  is  to  reverse  the  canon  of  Horace,  and  to  obtain  "fumo 
est  lucem" — *^  smoke  from  Hght."  They  have  turned  the 
very  New  Testament  itself  into  darkness.  Thus,  often  either 
with  wild,  fanciful,  mystical  interpretations,  or  with  misty 
metaphysics,  with  long  and  complicated  words,  with  a  ve- 
hement and  noisy  manner — the  subject  was  plain  enough 
when  the  preacher  began,  but  dark  enough  at  the  close, 
because  he  did  not  remember  the  maxim  :  "  Nonfumum  sed 
lucem"  A  rare  volume  might  be  filled,  and  the  materials 
are  close  at  our  hand,  with  illustrations  of  nonsense  ser- 
mons. 

M.  Mullois  quotes  the  well-known  anecdote  of  Louis  XTV. 
in  the  chapel  at  Versailles,  when  some  preacher  took  the 
occasion  boldly  to  inveigh  against  the  vices  and  the  pecu- 
liar dangers  of  the  great,  and  at  length  exclaimed,  "  Woe 
to  the  rich !  Woe  to  the  great !"  The  courtiers  murmured, 
although  the  king  had  lowered  his  eyes  ;  after  the  sermon, 
they  gathered  round  the  monarch,  and  talked  of  the  imper- 
tinence of  the  preacher,  and  of  reprimanding  him  for  his 
temerity.  The  king  quietly  said,  "  Gentlemen,  the  preacher 
has  done  his  duty,  now  let  us  do  oiu^s."    It  is  one  of  the 


Disappointment  in  Printed  Sermons.     419 

most  natural  and  simple  sayings  recorded  of  Louis  XIV. 
Not  to  shine  on  pages  should  be  the  ambition  of  the 
preacher,  he  Hves  in  a  voice,  and  the  voice  expires.  The 
mighty  masters  and  mistresses  of  song  know  this,  and  are 
content  to  act  upon  it.  Malibrans,  Brahams,  Jenny  Linds, 
and  Sims  Keeves  can  have  no  posthumous  fame,  The  mu- 
sic they  hold  in  their  hands  is  just  the  same  as  we  have  in 
our  di-awing-rooms.  They  live  in  the  moment,  but  then  in 
their  world  it  is  a  very  great  moment.  The  soul  interprets, 
and  fills  out,  and  gives  the  rest  and  the  movement  to  each 
bar,  this  is  their  business.  We  have  no  doubt  that  the  pul- 
pit has  suffered  greatly  by  short-hand  writers  ;  the  taking 
down  of  sermons  ;  the  incessant  publication  of  sermons ; 
the  fastidiousness  that  waits  on  nicely-balanced  images  and 
harmoniously-constructed  sentences.  All  this  interferes 
with,  and  robs  the  address  of  its  accent  of  conviction  ;  the 
orator  can  no  more  survive  than  the  singer.  Our  book- 
shelves groan  beneath  the  weight  of  voluminous  tomes, 
which  originally  found  their  expression  in  sermons;  and 
during  the  last  few  years  the  pubHcation  of  sermons  has 
broken  out  with  astonishing  vigor.  There  is  a  simple  rea- 
son for  this.  If  an  edition  of  sermons  be,  on  the  average, 
of  all  books  least  hkely  to  be  read,  it  is  also,  on  the  aver- 
age, of  all  books  most  certain  to  be  sold.  Any  preacher  in 
tolerable  favor  can  command  an  audience  not  only  for  his 
tongue  but  for  his  pen.  It  must  be  admitted,  and  most 
readers  very  well  know  it,  that  there  is  an  amazing  differ- 
ence between  the  successful  and  impressive  word  in  the 
pulpit,  and  success  and  impression  in  the  arm-chair  by  the 
fireside.  It  is  quite  amusing  to  hear  how  stoutly  peoj)le 
wiU  insist  upon  it  that  a  sermon  is  not  all  printed,  and  give 
vent  to  their  disappointment  in  reading  that  to  which  they 
had  listened  with  so  much  pleasure.  Of  course,  as  I  have 
said  before,  all  is  not  printed  ;  manner  cannot  be  printed, 
nor  accent,  nor  a  thousand  little  particulars  which  go  to 


420         On  the  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

make  up  the  undefinable  cliarm.  Words  in  their  delivery 
seem  so  much  more  full,  so  much  more  copious  and  com- 
prehensive ;  and  audiences  yearn  to  receive  a  sermon,  un- 
der the  impression  that  it  will  be  as  much  to  them  in  coldly 
reading  as  when  it  leaped  red-hot  from  the  sympathetic  fur- 
nace of  the  speaker's  soul.  They  yearn  to  read  it  and  yawn 
over  it.  Printed  sermons  in  general  can  be  little  better 
than  decanted  soda-water  a  day  old.    ' 

Great  sermons  which  have  moved  us  to  aU  the  deeps,  we 
have  desired  to  see  thdin  in  print ;  perhaps  they  were  very 
well,  probably  very  poor  indeed  ;  in  any  case,  how  different 
to  that  ineffable  flight  of  soul,  the  searching,  penetrating 
words  we  heard.  This  is  exactly  as  it  ought  to  be,  no 
stronger  proof  to  those  who  did  not  hear,  that  the  man  was 
really  at  home  in  his  work.  "Whitefield's  sermons  are  very- 
poor  things  to  read  compared  with  their  overwhelming 
power.  Oratory  is  neither  in  writing,  acting,  nor  even 
speaking.  Where  is  the  fragrance  of  a  flower  ?  Where  are 
the  tones  of  a  harp  ?  They  were  there,  here,  they  are 
gone,  you  cannot  catch  them — ^it  is  so  with  the  accent  of 
conviction.  This  is  the  fragrance  and  the  music  of  a  sermon 
good  for  anything  ;  and  although  I  have  taken  high  illus- 
trations, I  again  say  that  this  sacred  fire  may  burn  on  the 
altar  of  any  soul,  itself  persuaded  and  impressed.  Of 
course,  when  it  is  really  a  great  soul  as  well  as  a  sanctified 
one — a  David,  a  St.  Bernard,  or  an  Edward  Irving — the 
conviction  accumulated,  and  on  fire  through  all  the  facul- 
ties of  a  great  nature,  proportionately  compels  the  audi- 
ence to  tremble  and  thrill. 

And  it  comes  out  of  this  that  the  sermon  will  be  plain. 
M.  Mullois  has  several  chapters  with  such  headings  as  the 
following  :  "  The  Sermon  should  be  popular  ; "  "  The  Ser- 
mon should  be  plain  ; "  "  The  Sermon  should  be  short." 
Another  chapter  follows  on  "  Fact  and  kindliness,"  and  on 
"  Interest,  emotion,  and  animation."    Now,  in  reality,  while 


^^Fill  np  the  CashJ^  421 

all  these  topics  are  worthy  of  separate  thought  and  enf(5rce- 
rnent,  they  all  are  related  to  those  two  canons  on  which  we 
have  dwelt  already  ;  that  to  address  men  well,  they  must 
be  loved  much  ;  and  that  to  persuade  them,  there  must  be 
on  the  speaker's  tongue  the  accent  of  conviction.  All  this 
results,  in  fact,  we  beheve,  from  the  over-full  soul — aU  su- 
perfluity flows  from  a  fuU  heart.  There  is  a  twofold  sense 
in  which  it  is  true  that  "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart 
the  mouth  speaketh."  The  heart  not  only  constrains,  it 
restrains  ;  artificial  speech  always  lacks  the  real  flavor  and 
force  which  the  heart  gives  to  words — and  certainly  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  words — words — mere  words  alone, 
either  indicate  the  full  heart,  or  the  ability  to  reach  the 
heart.  This  fulness,  of  divine  xjleroma,  is  not  indicated  by 
the  organ  of  language.  The  late  Dr.  James  Alexander 
says  :  "I  Hstened  yesterday  to  a  sermon,  and  I  am  glad  I 
do  not  know  the  preacher's  name — it  was  twenty-five  min- 
utes long — all  the  matter  might  have  been  uttered  in  five  ; 
it  was  like  what  the  ladies  call  *  trifle ' — all  sweetness  and 
froth,  except  a  modicum  of  cake  at  the  bottom — it  was, 
doubtless,  written  extempore."  When  a  young  clergyman 
once  inquired  of  Dr.  Bellamy  "  what  he  should  do  to  have 
matter  for  his  discourses,"  the  shrewd  old  gentleman  re- 
plied, "  Fill  up  the  cask— ^ZZ  up  the  cask — fill  up  the  cask  ; 
then,  if  you  tap  it  anywhere,  you  get  up  a  good  stream  ;  if 
you  put  in  but  Httle,  it  will  dribble,  dribble,  dribble,  and 
you  must  tap,  tap,  tap,  and  then  get  but  little  after  all." 
But  this  does  not  represent  all — this  will  not  give  that 
piquancy  and  plainness,  that  instantaneous  power  of  touch 
which  is,  in  fact,  the  fuU  mind  flavored  and  spiced  by  an 
intense  soul.  We  think  it  very  likely  that  the  influence  and 
power  of  sermons  have  been  impaired  and  impeded  by  their 
length.  All  men,  whatever  their  attainment,  or  capacity, 
or  experience,  in  Protestant  churches,  have  been  expected 
to  fill  out  their  sermons  to  a  certain  length — and  that 


422  On  tlie  Formation  of  Style ^  etc, 

length,  perhaps,  quite  sufficient  for  human  patience,  even 
if  the  preacher  be  a  man  of  eloquence  and  conviction. 
How,  then,  when  he  is  neither  one  nor  the  other,  or,  at 
best,  a  Lilliputian  in  either?  It  is  true,  "  Omne  supei^- 
vacuum  manat  de  pleno pectore."  All  overflowing  flows  from 
a  full  heart.  Sometimes  the  danger  Hes  on  the  other  side  ; 
Horace,  indeed,  says  :  "  Esto  brevis " — "  Be  short."  He 
also  says  :  Brevis  esse  laboro,  dbscurus  fio  " — "  I  strive  to  be 
short,  I  become  obscure  ; "  and  preachers  should  use  and 
give  to  their  hearers  whatever  adds  really  to  the  apprehen- 
sion of  the  subject  in  their  own  mind  ;  there  is  an  unwise 
conciseness,  as  there  is  a  tedious  diffuseness  ;  aU  that  brings 
nearer  is  useful ;  aU  that  tends  more  to  unveil  the  subject 
to  the  mind  helps ;  there  are  among  our  modem  preachers 
many  whose  words  suffer  thus,  and  their  people  suffer  in 
them,  while  it  is  quite  possible  to  drown  the  sense  in  a  be- 
wildering world  of  sounds  ;  it  is  also  possible  to  fail  through 
want  of  application ;  few  audiences  will  beat  a  nugget  of 
gold  into  gold  leaf  for  themselves — very  few  are  disposed 
to  be  at  any  trouble.  We  heard  a  criticism  upon  a  minis- 
ter only  a  day  or  two  since :  "  It  is  so  nice  to  hear  our  min- 
ister ;  you  hear  the  same  thing  from  month  to  month  over 
again — dear  man — ^it's  always  the  same — Ah !  you  always 
know  where  to  find  him."  Therefore,  we  say,  encourage  a 
flow— not  a  flood.  Karely  can  it  be  wise  to  imitate  the  cat- 
aract in  force  or  speed,  but  the  river  you  may  imitate.  Dr. 
Johnson  says,  "  It  is  so  much  easier  to  acquire  correctness 
than  flow  that  I  would  say  to  every  young  preacher,  '  Write 
as  fast  as  you  can.' "  Whitefield's  rule  was  **  never  to  take 
back  anything  unless  it  were  wicked."  "This,"  says  Dr. 
Alexander,  "  is  very  different  from  rapid  utterance  or  pre- 
cipitancy. Deliberate  speech  is,  on  the  whole,  most  favor- 
able." Pastor  Harms  was  wont  to  comprehend  his  idea  of 
delivery  to  students  in  three  L's — "  Langsam — Laut — lAeb- 
lich"  poorly  rendered  by  lengthened — that  is,  deliberate — 


M,  Mullois  pleads  f 07'  Brevity.         423 

— ^loud  and  lovely  ;  and  Luther's  maxim  is  still  more  un- 
translatable "  Tritt  friscli  auf—thu's  maul  auf—hoor  hold 
auf — "Stand  up  cheerily — speak  up  manfully — leave  off 
speedily,'^'* 

M.  Mullois  insists,  with  great  earnestness,  on  the  neces- 
sity of  brevity.     He  quotes  St.  Francois  de  Sales  : 

The  good  Saint  Francois,  in  his  rules  to  the  preachers  of  his 
Order,  directs  that  their  sermons  should  be  short. 

"  BeUeve  me,  and  I  speak  from  experience,  the  more  you  say, 
the  less  will  the  hearers  retain  ;  the  less  you  say,  the  more  they 
will  profit.  By  dint  of  burdening  their  memory,  you  will  over- 
whelm it ;  just  as  a  lamp  is  extinguished  by  feeding  it  with  too 
much  oil,  and  plants  are  choked  by  immoderate  irrigation. 

"  When  a  sermon  is  too  long,  the  end  erases  the  middle  from 
the  memory,  and  the  middle  the  beginning. 

"Even  mediocre  preachers  are  acceptable,  provided  their  dis- 
courses are  short ;  whereas  even  the  best  preachers  are  a  burden 
when  they  speak  too  long." 

Is  not  long  jDreaching  very  much  like  an  attempt  to  surpass 
these  men,  who  were  so  highly  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity ? 

He  continues  : 

But  it  will  be  objected ;  What  can  be  said  in  ten  or  seven 
minutes  ?  Much,  much  more  than  is  generally  thought,  when  due 
preparation  is  made,  when  we  have  a  good  knowledge  of  man- 
kind, and  are  well  versed  in  religious  matters.  .  .  .  Have 
not  a  few  words  often  sufficed  to  revolutionize  multitudes,  and 
to  produce  an  immense  impression  ? 

The  harangues  of  Napoleon  only  lasted  a  few  minutes,  yet 
they  electrified  whole  armies.  The  speech  at  Bordeaux  did  not 
exceed  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  yet  it  resounded  throughout 
the  world.  Had  it  been  longer,  it  would  have  been  less  effective. 
In  fifteen  weeks,  with  a  sermon  of  seven  minutes  every  Sunday, 
one  might  give  a  complete  course  of  religious  instruction,  if  the 
sermons  were  well  digested  beforehand. 


424  ^^^  ^^^^  Formation  of  Style ^  etc. 

If,  then,  you  wish  to  be  successful,  in  the  first  place  fix  the 
length  of  your  sermon,  and  never  go  beyond  the  time !  be  in- 
flexible on  that  score.  Should  you  exceed  it,  apologize  to  your 
audience  for  so  doing,  and  prove  in  the  pulpit  of  truth  that  you 
can  be  faithful  to  your  word. 

Hs  *  *  *  *  * 

"  But  do  speak  more  at  length.  .  .  .  you  are  wrong  in 
being  so  brief  .  .  .  you  only  tantalize  your  audience  .  .  . 
you  deprive  them  of  a  real  pleasure."  Expostulations  like  these 
will  pour  in  upon  you ;  but  don't  listen  to  them :  be  inflexible, 
for  those  who  urge  them  are  enemies  without  knowing  it.  Be 
more  rigid  than  ever  in  observing  the  rule  which  you  have  pre- 
scribed for  yourself.  Then  your  sermon  will  be  talked  of — ^it 
will  be  a  phenomenon — everybody  will  come  to  see  a  seimon  of 
seven  minutes'  duration.  The  people  will  come ;  the  rich  will 
follow.  Faith  will  bring  the  one,  and  curiosity  will  attract  the 
other,  and  thus  the  Divine  word  will  have  freer  course  and  be 
glorified.     .     .     . 

This  is  certainly,  to  speak  in  paradox,  carrying  brevity  to 
its  utmost  extent.  Preachers  of  the  Church  of  Eome  have 
usually  designed  brevity.  We  believe  they  have  no  in- 
stances, like  those  tremendous  trials  of  patience  in  the  great 
Puritan  and  Church  of  England  preachers,  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  who  did  hold  their  audi- 
ences for  hours.  It  is  noteworthy,  although  we  do  not 
speak  of  exceptional  occasions,  nor  do  we  forget  instances 
to  the  contrary,  that  some  of  the  greatest  and  most  useful 
preachers  of  our  day  never  pass  beyond  half  an  hour, 
while  others  are  scarcely  ever  so  long.  Perhaps  if  preach- 
ers remembered  more  frequently  that  words  wiU  not  come 
back,  "  Nescii  vox  missa  reverti " — "  A  word  sent  abroad  can 
never  return,"  it  would  check  in  all  a  too  impulsive  flow  ; 
surely  it  might  make  us  all  tremble  to  think  of  the  immor- 
tahty  of  our  words,  and  especially  if  they  are  uttered,  who 
can  Hmit  their  destination?  Who  can  tell  the  soil  into 
which  they  may  fall,  and  in  what  manner  they  shall  bring 


TTie  Sermon  should  he  Plain. 


425 


forth  fruit  ?  Certain  it  is,  tliey  shall  never  return,  therefore 
should  the  conscience  dictate  the  word,  should  rule  the  in- 
fluence, shape  the  sentence,  and  give  accent  to  the  tone. 
This  would  be  the  true  study  of  the  passions  ;  of  that  dif- 
ficult and  yet  so  deskable  j)art  of  pulpit  power,  the  pathetic. 
It  is  to  be  supposed  we  have,  in  our  turn,  all  been  compelled 
to  laugh  where  the  orator  intended  we  should  cry  ;  he  had 
learned  his  lesson  so  badly.  He  knew  nothing  of  what  he 
was  speaking,  simulating  a  tone  ;  as  when  an  auditor  spoke 
of  a  rather  celebrated  French  preacher,  and  said,  "  In  your 
preaching  just  now,  jou  pronounced,  '  Depart  ye  cursed,' 
exactly  as  if  you  had  been  saying,  '  Come,  ye  blessed  of  My 
Father.' "  We  do  not  imply  from  this  that,  beside  the 
preparation  of  the  heart,  there  is  not  necessary  a  human 
artist-side  to  preparation  for  the  pulpit,  in  the  first  place, 
as  the  whole  result  will  depend  on  the  true  humanity,  and 
fine  texture  of  the  human  instrument  itself.  This  is  a 
human  side,  and  then,  beyond  this,  what  right  has  any  man 
to  suppose  himself  exempted  from  the  old  law  of  labor  ? 
"By  the  file,  and  by  the  whetstone,"  to  quote  again  from 
Horace,  the  work  proceeds  ^^ Silabor  et  mora  liiiice," — "By 
the  labor  and  by  the  tediousness  of  the  file."  To  aU  suc- 
cess goes  patience,  plodding,  and  perseverance,  and  the 
great  masters  of  speech,  however  free,  full,  and  flashing 
their  words  might  be,  were  no  real  exceptions  to  this  great 
law ;  on  the  contrary,  they  illustrated  it.  *•'  Fungar  vwe 
cotis."  "  I  will  do  the  office  of  a  whetstone,"  and  this  refers 
to  external  helps  and  aids.  The  whetstone  cannot  cut  it- 
self, but  it  can  sharpen  the  steel  and  enable  it  to  cut ;  and 
so  with  all  studies.  AU  the  stores  and  accumulations  of 
mental  wealth  and  discipline,  every  study  is  a  whetstone  to 
sharpen  the  wits.  Moreover,  if  the  iron  be  blunt,  then  to 
the  file  or  the  whetstone  must  be  put  more  strength.  What 
can  any  science,  language,  or  book,  do  for  a  teacher? 
Mathematics,  criticism,  they  are  valuable,  but  they  are  only 


426  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

valuable  as  they  are  proved  by  the  labor  of  the  file,  not  in 
themselves  ;  they  are  a  kind  of  whetstone  on  which  to 
sharpen  the  intelligence.  They  are  hke  a  hone,  dead  and 
lifeless  in  itself,  yet  calling  forth  the  edige  and  sharpness 
in  the  steel.  All  people  must  in  their  time  have  been 
amazed  at  the  Httle  that  study  and  reading  in  many  depart- 
ments seem  to  have  effected  for  many  men. 

And  if  w^e  seem  to  step  from  these  considerations  to  some 
apparently  not  so  closely,  at  first  sight,  connected  with 
them,  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  asking  what,  in  the  whole 
range  of  culture,  can  go  beyond  the  enabling  a  man  to  speak 
plainly  upon  the  matters  he  takes  in  hand  ?  From  some 
cause  or  other,  we  believe,  if  auditors  were  polled,  their  ver- 
dict would  be  that  in  general  preaching  is  obscure.  M. 
Mullois  well,  and  not  needlessly  says,  "  the  sermon  should 
be  plain."  A  spirit  thoroughly  in  earnest,  when  it  attempts 
to  enter  regions  where  perhaps  the  multitude  may  be  un- 
able to  follow,  will  usually  convey  a  feehng,  an  impression 
of  an  elevated  and  healthful  character ;  but  no  sermon, 
even  if  it  have  passages  of  this  character  should  be  wanting 
in  strokes  and  general  delineations  and  impressions  which 
should  entitle  it  to  the  character  of  a  plain  sermon  ;  great 
statements,  great  enforcements,  and  great  influences  dis- 
tinctly felt.  This  has  been  the  mark  of  all  great  oratory. 
Demosthenes  has  ever  been  held  as  a  mark  and  a  model  in 
this  particular.  "What  we  know  of  the  neglected,  and  al- 
most forgotten,  but  splendid  orations  of  Bohngbroke,  one  of 
the  greatest  of  English  masters,  was  of  this  type  ;  and  the 
invectives  and  orations  of  Chatham,  Brougham,  and  Fox. 
When  we  look  at  the  great  masters  of  pulpit  eloquence, 
MassUlon,  Bourdaloue,  Saurin,  Hall  and  even  Irving,  it  is 
the  same, — ^plainness,  so  far  from  being  an  impediment,  is 
an  element  of  it.  Surely  the  question  is  natural  enough — 
how  can  that  be  really  eloquent  which  is  not  obvious? 
Neither  a  flow  of  speech,  nor  fertility  of  illustration  can 


A  Preacher'^ s  Object  Creates  Earnestness,  427 

constitute  it,  but  the  fitness  of  both  to  impress,  and  carry 
along  the  feehngs  of  an  audience  ;  and  the  end  of  all 
homiletics  should  be  twofold,  namely,  to  furnish  the  mind 
with  method,  and  to  give  it  freedom,  freshness,  and  clear- 
ness in  the  use  of  it.  Dr.  Newman,  in  his  lecture  on  Uni- 
versity preaching  says  : 

But,  not  to  go  to  the  consideration  of  divine  influences,  which 
is  beyond  my  subject,  the  very  presence  of  simple  earnestness  is 
even  in  itself  a  powerful  natural  instrument  to  effect  that  toward 
which  it  is  directed.  Earnestness  creates  earnestness  in  others 
by  sympathy ;  and  the  more  a  preacher  loses  and  is  lost  to  him- 
self, the  more  does  he  gain  his  brethren.  Nor  is  it  without  some 
logical  force  also ;  for  what  is  powerful  enough  to  absorb  and 
possess  a  preacher,  has  at  least  a  prima  facie  claim  of  attention 
on  the  part  of  his  hearer.  On  the  other  hand,  anything  which 
interferes  with  this  earnestness,  or  which  argues  its  absence,  is 
still  more  certain  to  blunt  the  force  of  the  most  cogent  argu- 
ment conveyed  in  the  most  eloquent  language.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  great  philosopher  of  antiquity,  in  speaking  in  his  "  Treatise 
on  Khetoric,"  of  the  various  kinds  of  persuasives,  which  are 
available  in  the  Art,  considers  the  most  authoritative  of  these  to 
be  that  which  is  drawn  from  personal  traits  of  a  moral  nature 
evident  in  the  orator ;  for  such  matters  are  cognizable  by  all 
men,  and  the  common  sense  of  the  world  decides  that  it  is  safer, 
where  it  is  possible,  to  commit  oneself  to  the  judgment  of  men 
of  character,  than  to  any  considerations  addressed  merely  to  the 
feelings  or  the  reason. 

On  these  grounds  I  would  go  on  to  lay  down  a  precept,  which 
I  trust  is  not  extravagant,  when  allowance  is  made  for  the  pre- 
ciseness  and  the  point  which  are  unavoidable  in  all  categorical 
statements  upon  matters  of  conduct.  It  is,  that  preachers  should 
neglect  everything  whatever  besides  devotion  to  their  one  object, 
and  earnestness  in  enforcing  it,  till  they  in  some  good  measure 
attain  to  these  requisites.  Talent,  logic,  learning,  words,  man- 
ner, voice,  action,  all  are  required  for  the  perfection  of  a 
preacher ;  but  "  one  thing  is  necessary," — an  intense  perception 
and  appreciation  of  the  end  for  which  he  preaches,  and  that  is, 


428  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

to  be  the  ministering  of  some  definite  spiritual  good  to  those 
who  hear  him.  Who  could  wish  to  be  more  eloquent,  more  pow- 
erful, more  successful  than  the  Teacher  of  the  Nations  ?  yet  who 
more  earnest,  who  more  natural,  w^ho  more  unstudied,  who  more 
self-forgetting  than  He  ? 

And  here,  in  order  to  prevent  misconception,  two  remarks 
must  be  made,  which  will  lead  us  further  into  the  subject  we  are 
engaged  upon.  The  first  is,  that,  in  what  I  have  been  saying,  I 
do  not  mean  that  a  preacher  must  aim  at  earnestness,  but  that 
he  must  aim  at  his  object,  which  is  to  do  some  spiritual  good  to 
his  hearers,  and  which  will  at  once  make  him  earnest.  It  is  said 
that,  when  a  man  has  to  cross  an  abyss  by  a  narrow  plank 
thrown  over  it,  it  is  his  wisdom  not  to  look  at  the  plank  along 
which  lies  his  path,  but  to  fix  his  eyes  steadily  on  the  point  in 
the  opposite  precipice,  at  which  the  plank  ends.  It  is  by  gazing 
at  the  object  which  he  must  reach,  and  ruling  himself  by  it,  that 
he  secures  to  himself  the  powder  of  walking  to  it  straight  and 
steadily.  The  case  is  the  same  in  moral  matters ;  no  one  will 
become  really  earnest  by  aiming  directly  at  earnestness  ;  any  one 
may  become  earnest  by  meditating  on  the  motives,  and  by 
drinking  at  the  sources  of  earnestness.  We  may  of  course  work 
ourselves  up  into  a  pretence,  nay  into  a  paroxysm  of  earnestness ; 
as  we  may  chafe  our  cold  hands  until  they  are  warm.  But  when 
we  cease  chafing  we  lose  the  warmth  again ;  on  the  contrary, 
let  the  sun  come  out  and  strike  us  with  his  beams,  and  we  need 
no  artificial  chafing  to  be  warm.  The  hot  words,  then,  and 
energetic  gestures  of  a  preacher,  taken  by  themselves,  are  just  as 
much  signs  of  earnestness,  as  rubbing  the  hands,  or  flapping  the 
arms  together  are  signs  of  warmth ;  though  they  are  natural 
where  earnestness  already  exists,  and  pleasing  as  being  its  spon- 
taneous concomitants.  To  sit  down  to  compose  for  the  pulpit, 
with  a  resolution  to  be  eloquent,  is  one  impediment  to  persua- 
sion ;  but  to  be  determined  to  be  earnest  is  absolutely  fatal  to  it. 

He  who  had  before  his  mental  eye  the  Four  Last  Things,  will 
have  the  true  earnestness,  the  horror  or  the  rapture,  of  one  who 
witnessed  a  great  conflagration,  or  discerned  some  rich  or  sub- 
lime prospect  of  natural  scenery.  His  countenance,  his  manner, 
his  voice,  speak  for  him,  in   proportion  as  his  view  has  been 


"  Veritas  Pateat,  Placeat^  Moveaty     429 

yivid  or  minute.   The  great  English  poet  has  described  this  sort 
of  eloquence,  when  a  calamity  has  befallen  : 

Yea,  this  man's  brow,  like  to  a  title  page, 

Foretells  the  nature  of  a  tragic  volume. 

Thou  tremblest,  and  the  whiteness  in  thy  cheek 

Is  apter  than  thy  tongue  to  tell  thy  errand. 

It  is  this  earnestness,  in  the  supernatural  order,  which  is  the 
eloquence  of  saints  ;  and  not  of  saints  only,  but  of  all  Christian 
preachers,  according  to  the  measure  of  their  faith  and  love.  As 
the  case  would  be  with  one  who  has  actually  seen  what  he  re- 
lates, the  herald  of  tidings  of  the  invisible  world  also  will  be, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  whether  vehement  or  calm,  sad  or 
exulting,  always  simple,  grave,  emphatic,  and  peremptory ;  and 
all  this,  not  because  he  has  proposed  to  himself  to  be  so,  but  be- 
cause certain  intellectual  convictions  involve  certain  external 
manifestations. 

Three  things  have  been  mentioned  as  constitutiii^g  the 
virtue  of  the  orator,  "  Veritas  pateat,  Veritas  placeat,  Veritas 
moveat" — "To  instruct,  to  please,  and  to  move."  But 
neither  one  or  the  other  can  be  reached,  nor  can  any  be  ef- 
fective imless  the  meaning  of  the  speaker  be  distinctly  seen. 
Therefore,  all  teachers  of  rhetoric  have  insisted  upon  perspi- 
cuity, while  we  have  already  said  that  obscurity  character- 
izes, to  a  considerable  degree  we  fear,  most  of  the  exercises 
of  the  pulpit ;  lacking  that  earnestness  which  Dr.  Newman 
demands  as  the  chief  qualification  for  perspicuity.  Nor 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  w^eakness  and  obscurity  are  com- 
panions. We  may  speak  of  this  as  arising  from  a  bad 
grammatical  construction  of  sentences  ;  a  faulty  collocation 
of  adverbs  and  pronouns  ;  affected  phrases,  and  unmeaning 
phrases  ;  harsh  and  turgid  words,  resulting  in  long-winded 
sentences  ;  or  the  Sesquipedalia  verba,  which  St.  Frangois  de 
Sales  denounced  as  the  pest  of  preaching  ;  but  beneath  all, 
the  true  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  absence  of  a  soul ' 
thoroughly  informed  and  inflamed.  Mr.  Potter,  in  his 
"  Sacred  Eloquence,"  says  : 


430  On  the  Formation  of  Style^  etc. 

In  conclusion,  we  will  only  remark  that,  whilst  the  preacher, 
in  his  instructions  to  his  flock,  will  aim  at  correctness  and  purity 
of  language,  he  will  also  remember  that  for  him,  as  a  preacher 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  view  of  the  special  end 
which  he  must  necessarily  propose  to  himself,  there  is  some- 
thing infinitely  more  important  than  any  mere  correctness  or 
elegance  of  language.  Hence,  whenever  it  may  be  necessary 
in  order  to  render  himself  better  understood,  he  will  not  hesi- 
tate to  sacrifice  the  graces,  and,  in  one  sense,  even  the  purity 
of  language.  Following  the  council  of  St.  Augustine,  he  will 
study  the  most  intelligible,  rather  than  the  most  elegant,  man- 
ner of  expressing  what  he  has  to  say.  Emdentice^  appetitus 
aliquando  negligit  verba  cultiora^  nee  curat  quid  bene  sonet,  sed 
quid  bene  indicet  quod  ostendere  intendit.  For,  as  asks  this  holy 
doctor,  what  is  the  use  of  expressing  our  ideas  in  the  most 
polished  manner,  of  what  use  is  the  purity  and  elegance  of  our 
style,  if  om*  hearers  do  not  comprehend  our  meaning  ?  Quid 
prodest  locutionis  integritas  quam  non  sequitur  intellectus  audi- 
entis  ?  And  he  further  illustrates  his  meaning  by  a  very  ingeni- 
ous comparison.  Quid  prodest  he  inquires,  clavis  aurea  si  aperire 
quod  volumiis  non  proest,  aut  quid  obest  lignea  si  hoc  protest? 
But  let  the  preacher  bear  in  mind,  whilst  he  strives  to  follow 
these  wise  precepts  in  his  practice,  that  this  style  of  speaking 
requires  both  intellect  and  skill.  Let  him  not  delude  himself 
by  supposing  that  in  order  to  speak  with  this  perfect  simplicity 
of  language  and  of  style,  he  must  therefore  descend  to  what  is 
low  or  undignified.  I{(jbc  sic  ornatum  detraliit  ut  sordes  non  con- 
traliat.  Let  him  rather  remember  that  in  this,  as  in  many  other 
cases,  the  perfection  of  art  consists  in  concealing  art.  Ars  artis 
celare  artem.  It  is  of  such  simple  instruction  as  this  that  Cicero 
is  speaking  when  he  says,  Negligentia  est  diligens  ;  and  he  says 
what  is  most  true,  since  this  simple,  and,  at  first  sight,  apparent- 
ly negligent  manner  of  preaching,  indicates  the  man  who  is 
more  solicitous  about  the  solid  instruction  which  he  is  to  impart 
to  his  flock  than  about  the  mere  words  in  which  he  is  to  express 
it ;  the  man  who  is  much  more  anxious  about  the  interests  of 
his  Master,  and  the  welfare  of  his  people,  than  his  own  gratifi- 
cation as  a  scholar,  or  his  reputation  as  a  preacher. 


">&*  cepit  Amphora  cur  exit  Urceusr     431 

Why,  in  that  art  of  poetry  to  vrhich  we  have  referred  at 
the  commencement  of  this  pa^oer,  Horace  bids  us  beware 
of  ^mwz  sjyecies,  confused  ideas.  We  have  seen,  and  who 
has  not  heard,  sentences  which  seem,  Hke  the  pig-faced 
lady,  or  the  talking-fish,  incongruous.  The  preacher  should 
paint  his  ideas;  should  see  what  he  means.  It  is  the 
absence  of  this  which  attempts  the  sublime,  but  swells  only 
into  bombast,  "  Hence  it  is,"  says  Horace,  "  as  if  you  find 
introduced  a  dolphin  m  a  forest,  or  a  wild  boar  in  a  flood." 
Correct  thinking  will  not  always,  while  attempting  to  right 
itself,  be  clear  thinking;  but  thought  ought  not  to  dare 
to  become  pubhc  speech  until  it  is  cleared  from  all  sedi- 
ment and  darkness  and  confusion.  Rowland  Hill  spoke 
of  a  preacher  of  this  kind. 

The  attempt  to  drift  too  many  matters  into  a  discourse, 
leading  to  the  confusion  of  all  the  subjects  belonging  to  it, 
is  a  fruitful  source  of  obscurity. 

Hence,  "  Si  cepit  Amphora  cur  exit  Urceus"  and  what  is 
it  ?  Is  it  a  frying-pan,  or  a  tea-kettle  ?  do  you  mean  it  for 
a  finger-glass,  or  a  saucepan?  a  flower-pot,  or  a  butter- 
tub  ?  or,  to  adhere  more  closely  to  Horace;  "  If  he  began 
a  vase  why  turns  it  out  to  be  a  pitcher?"  the  pitcher 
should  understand  what  he  can  do — what  his  powers  are 
equal  to;  the  coarsest  pitcher  that  holds  water  is  a  good 
vessel,  but  it  is  not  good  for  the  table  of  a  prince.  What 
do  you  design  ?  In  a  great  house  there  are  many  vessels, 
and  some  to  honor  and  some  (in  comparison)  to  dishonor, 
iron  may  be  the  key  which  locks  the  house — gold  may  be 
the  vessel  on  the  table,  the  ewer  on  the  toilet;  all  will  be 
well  if  iron  does  not  claim  to  be  gold,  or  common  earthen- 
ware to  be  porcelain. 


INDEX. 


Page 

Pa|e 

Abelard's  influence   on  his 

Adams  when  alive    - 

age 

193 

books    when  publish- 

 and  St.  Bernard 

193 

ed        -            -            -       - 

230 

Abraham,  tlie  Palace  of 

132 

— —  a  popular  preacher — 

230 

and  tlie  stranger 

314 

style  rugged     - 

230 

Abundant  heart,  the 

421 

sermon  on  manners — 

Acids,  crystallization  of 

24 

unstable  man,  the     - 

231 

Accommodating  hearers  ca- 

 characteristics  of  style 

232 

pacities 

307 

—  aphorisms 

233 

Afflictions        -            -         - 

239 

such  a  voice 

234 

of  the  righteous 

56 

changes  on  a  word 

235 

Age  of  miracles,  an 

173 

division  of  a  sermon — 

236 

Aim  at  spiritual  culture 

71 

tongue,  on  the    - 

237 

A    Kempis,     Thomas,   sur- 

    compared    with  Her- 

name of        -            -          - 

152 

bert 

237 

Allegory,  an  improper  use 

be  thankful 

238 

of        -            -            -       - 

321 

on  mountains 

238 

On  truth,  an 

330 

literary  characteristics 

Illustration  of  ancient 

331 

of  age 

240 

Sin  of        -            - 

332 

quaint    preaching, — 

Does,  help 

336 

"  Take  thy  son  " 

241 

Almost  a  Christian    - 

58 

a  transition  age    . 

241 

Amazing  power  of  sound    - 

10 

birth  of  Christ— glori- 

American Backwood  preach- 

ous song    . 

242 

ers   - 

-  29 

compared    with     An- 

Methodism 

30 

drewes  and  Donne    . 

245 

Analogies,    unite    Nature 

"  clouds," — God  in    a 

and  Scripture 

302 

circle 

245 

Analogy,  elucidates  Divine 

and  Henry  Smith,  un 

truths 

296 

known 

247 

Adams,  Puritan — 

friendship  with  Donne  247 

ignorance  of  life,  etc. 

229 

glorious  age  of,  the     . 

247 

(433) 

434        Lamps^  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets. 


Page 


Adams     lost    in    oblivion ; 

Anecdotes  continued. 

character  of  works 

248 

Crow's  nest,  a 

278 

Analogy  : — 

Franklin  and  the  Quaker  293 

An  instinct  of  thought     . 

301 

Fate  of  a  sermon  . 

213 

An  inestimable  weapon    . 

303 

"  Fill  up  the  cask  " 

421 

Argument  from  the 

298 

Good  swimmer  wanted,  a 

28 

299 

"  He  kens  about  leather  " 

385 

what  mind  is  needed 

Hill,  Rowland,  preaching 

281 

for    .... 

300 

Horrors  of  war 

290 

A  method    of   argam.ent 

How  preachers  are  made . 

31 

against  Pantheism 

303 

James  I.,  of 

264 

A  most  hopeful  torch 

303 

Jesuit's  horse,  the 

30 

Employed  by  Scripture    . 

302 

Jacobites 

210 

Experience     a  name    for 

Jay,  William,  of   . 

72 

moral 

301 

Juxtaposition  of  ideas      . 

287 

From  science 

307 

Kneeling  order,  the 

31 

God  proved  by 

302 

Lighthouse-keeper,  the    . 

72 

Great  discoveries,  reason- 

Louis XIV,  of       . 

418 

ings  from     * 

300 

Methodist  horse,  the 

31 

Prompter  and  guide  of  life, 

Nelson,  John,  of    . 

27 

a    .          . 

300 

No  Doctors  of  divinity 

30 

Poet  and    metaphysician 

Of  a  most  amiable  char- 

meet in        .       . 

301 

acter 

288 

What,  may  do 

305 

Old  Jemmy 

253 

Whately  (Archbishop),  on 

300 

Ostentatious 

34 

Used  by  Christian  teach- 

Philosophic warmer,  the  . 

289 

ers            .           . 

301 

Polite  preacher  the 

34 

Andersen,  Hans   C,  in  the 

Power  of  the  crucifix 

143 

pulpit 

147 

Preaching  to  the  elect 

282 

Andrewes,  Launcelot :— 

Preacher's  wardrobe,  a     . 

29 

a  pitcher 

13 

Religion  an  umbrella 

282 

characteristics  of,       14-243 

Running  from  i)reachers  . 

29 

illustrations     of    his 

Sammy  Breeze 

255 

style 

14 

Son  of  Amram 

145 

Anecdote— 

Stepping  in  the  way 

31 

"  And  Bartholomew  " 

209 

Strange  prayers     . 

30 

An  ill-mannered  parson    . 

60 

•  Test  of  penitence 

153 

Applicant  for  ordination, 

Throwing  stones  . 

381 

an            .            .            . 

32 

Well  is  deep,  the  . 

71 

Aquinas  and  Bonaventura  143 

Ancient  Mariner ,  quotation 

A  set-off  to  conversation  . 

283 

from 

33 

Bernard,  St.,  and  the  Vir- 

Anthony, St.,  and  the   cob- 

gin         . 

212 

bler 

313 

Billy  Hibbard 

31 

of  Vieyra's  preaching  . 

143 

Bishop's  reproof,  a 

73 

quoted  • 

144 

Bishop  and  his  Chaplain, 

"   Pulpit  satirist,  a     . 

268 

the 

299 

"   Characteristics  and 

Bold  French  preacher,  a 

21 

wit 

268 

"But" 

209 

Sermon  to  fishes 

268 

Commending  to  the  con- 

Apes in  the  temple  . 

250 

science    . 

42 

Aphorisms     . 

233 

Page 


Index. 


435 


Page 

Page 

Apt  to  teach 

47 

Bernard  St.,  spiritual  viva- 

Arminianisni  and  rational- 

city of        . 

163 

ism              .            .            , 

112 

birth  and  parentage     . 

163 

Aretinus  and  St.  Jerome 

153 

character  of  parents     . 

163 

Artist  faculty  in  preaching  . 

9 

's  stirring  times  of  boy- 

164 

Art  and  Carlyle 

176 

hood 

164 

and  Ruskin 

176 

two  instincts  of  age     . 

105 

needed  for  the  pulpit  . 

424 

conversion  of    . 

106 

of  public  speaking 

140 

]30wer  over  others 

166 

of  feebleness     . 

318 

enters  Citeaux — mon- 

 perfectness 

430 

astic  reformer ;  severe  au- 

Athanasius and  Calvin 

107 

sterities 

107 

of  Judea.  the    . 

76 

love    of    nature — be- 

Audiences, two 

47 

comes  abbot 

108 

Augustine,  St. 

in      the    Valley     of 

style  characterized 

109 

Wormwood  —  builds  the 

the     life     made    the 

Abbey  of  Clairvaux  ;  des- 

preacher    . 

110 

cription  of 

169 

passionate     love     of 

and  William  of  Cham- 

beauty 

110 

peaux 

170 

confessions  quoted 

110 

literary  labors  . 

172 

source   of   wealth   to 

—. —  an  age  of  miracles 

173 

the  Puritans 

110 

travels  ;   visits  Paris,  . 

the  Mote  in  the  sun- 

impeaches    the    monks ; 

beam 

111 

splendor  of  the  church     . 

174 

Moule's  estimate,  of    . 

111 

exhortation     to     the 

depth  and  clearness  of 

Knight  Templars 

177 

vision 

112 

arbiter  between  popes 

179 

c St  Paul,  and  compared 

94 

Songs  of  Solomon,  illustra- 

Author's method   of   using 

• 

tions  of      . 

182 

sacred  images,  the 

322 

death  of  brother,  sor- 

Awfulness of  preaching,  the 

290 

row  for  Gerard 
funeral    sermon    for 

190 

Backwood  preachers 

30 

Gerard 

191 

bishops 

28 

Abelard,  and     . 

193 

Basil,   first    orator    of    the 

preaches  a  crusade 

194 

Church 

108 

death     . 

195 

St.,  legend  of   . 

128 

Berridge,  John : — 

Bartholomew,  and    . 

208 

characteristics  . 

275 

Bathos  reproved 

145 

epitaph 

276 

Beauty  of  morning,  the 

64 

Sergeant  If 

276 

Beautiful  garden,  the 

389 

Be  thankful 

238 

Believe  in  Christ 

73 

Boiling  water 

43 

Begetting,  a  new 

244 

Book  of  Leviticus,  the 

291 

Beginning  of  a  sermon,  the  152 

Books,  use  of 

294 

Beelzebub  and  his  Hogs 

257 

Bold  French  preacher,  a 

21 

Bernard,       St.,       mediaeval 

Boundless  loving  kindness  119 

preacher             .            162 

-195 

Bossuet,  preaching  of 

208 

Foremost  man  of  his 

Luther  contrasted,  and 

387 

age              ... 

162 

Bow  in  the  clouds,  the 

258 

Elijah  of  Europe,  the  102 

Burden  of  Babylon,  the 

83 

436         Lamps ^  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 


Page 

Pago 
223 

Burden  of  Egypt,  the 

84 

Christianity  and  Paganism. 

Tyre      .            . 

85 

success  of 

104 

Burial  rites    . 

131 

Church  and  State     . 

113 

Bathos,  specimens  of 

315 

a  power  in  dark  ages  . 

114 

of  Bellew,  J.  C. 

316 

Legends 

Bradbury  (Bold  Tom) 

283 

Council  of  Nice     . 

72 

wit  and  humor  of 

283 

St.  Basil      . 

12b 

sins  ;   sermon  on  Queen 

Devil  and  Saint     . 

74 

Anne  ;    dislike  of  Watt's 

Frater  Diabolus 

149 

hymns 

284 

Holy  Child  Jesus 

147 

Bright  poker,  the     . 

311 

Spiridion,    the   shep- 

Butler's Analogy. 

herd 

73 

does  it  satisfy  ? 

297 

Chrysostom.  St. 

Martineau,  James,  on  . 

297 

birth  and  parentage     . 

115 

Macintosh,  Sir  J.,  on    . 

298 

Mother's  character 

115 

Pitt,  William  . 

298 

studies  rhetoric 

115 

Schedel  on 

298 

Master's  regret 

115 

Hennell,  Miss   . 

298 

Augustine's  conversion 

116 

starting  point   . 

300 

determines  to  abandon 

character  of 

299 

the  world 

116 

Byron,  and  Lake  Leman      . 

336 

Mother's  entreaties,  her 

death 

116 

Calais  Lighthouse    . 

72 

becomes  a  monk,  a  her- 

Calvin and  Athanasius 

107 

mit 

117 

Carlyle  and  the  fine  arts      . 

176 

ordination,  an  orator   . 

117 

Cartwright,    Peter,  charac 

revolt  of  Antioch,  des- 

teristics  of 

263 

ecration   of    the    statues, 

compared  with  South  263 

fear  in  the  city 

118 

Caturce,  Master,  Story  of 

22 

an  appeal  to  the  Em- 

and  the  Dominican 

22 

^  peror 

118 

conduct  before  judges 

orations  on  the  statues  119 

death 

23 

quotations  from 

119 

Caxtoniana,  quotation  from  399 

Bishop  of  Constantino- 

Characteristics,  Andrewe's 

ple 

120 

and  style    . 

243 

's   secret   departure,  a 

Donne's,  Dr.,  and  style 

245 

social  reformer 

121 

Herbert,  George,  of      . 

14 

's  enemies ;  Synod  of 

Keble,  William 

14 

the  oak ;  43  charges 

122 

Puritan,  Adams 

230 

heroism,  "  What  can  I 

"          works 

248 

fear"          .            . 

123 

Some  old  sermons 

252 

banishment ;    tumult 

Hebrew  poetry 

.    51 

of  the  people 

124 

Chapel  and  theatre 

208 

return.   Gibbon's   des- 

Christ, birth  of 

242 

cription 

124 

conqueror,  the  . 

243 

offends  the  Empress     . 

125 

His  own  evidence 

92 

second    banishment ; 

how  will  come 

92 

destruction  of  the  Cathe- 

 in  the  lonely  cell 

143 

dral 

126 

Christians,  cold 

322 

a  wanderer,  etc. 

127 

—  must  fly 

323 

Legend  of  St.   Basil; 

— r-  liufus,  a 

/163 

death 

128 

Index, 


437 


Page 
Clirysostom's  St.,  body  tak- 
en to  Constantinople,  char- 
acter of  his  worivs  .  129 
illustrations  of         129-135 
his  eloquence    .  .  131 
power  of  his  genius     .  134 
faithfulness  in  preach- 
ing             ...  135 
personal  appearance     .  136 
compared     with    St. 
Paul            .            .            .137 
Cinque  ports  of  Mansoul      .     40 
Clement's  style,  illustration 

of    .  .  .  .105 

Clouds  .  .  .245 

Cluster  of  worthies,  a  .  220 

Commentator  Trapp  .  220 

Course  sermons        .  .  259 

Complex,  ideas  .  .     Gl 

Consciousness  .  .     42 

Conscience,  peace  with        .  205 
Copiousness  of  fancy  .  203 

Conviction,  power  of  .  397 

Council  of  Troyes     .  .  177 

Crisis  of  life  .  .     50 

Critical  audience,  the  .     47  • 

Crosses,  crosses         .  .194 

Crusades,  enthusiasm  for     .  164 
Strange  army  for  .  178 

Culture,  culture        .  .     45 

Dante  of  Judaea,  the  .     77 

David's  service          .  .  267 
Dawson,  William— 

's  method   and  power    12 

Punch  in  the  pulpit  .  283 

power  over  vast  audi- 
ences          .            .  .  284 
Darning-needle,  the  .  311 
Dark-lantern,  the      .  .  334 
Death  consequent  on  sin  .  413 

cruelty  of          .  .  190 

spiritual            .  .416 

universal           .  .  417 

Deborah,  song  of  .  .76 
Decoration  of  the  pitcher  .  33 
Definition  of  a  man  .  71 
of  a  sermon  .  .  227 
De  la  Croix,  Alexander  .  18 
a  Friar,  leaves  Roman- 
ism .            .            .  .18 


to 


Page 

18 
18 
18 
19 
20 
20 
106 

302 


De  la  Croix  condemned 
death,  preaching 

passion  of  the  cross     . 

at  Lyons 

taken  to  Paris,  torture 

preaching  at  the  stake 

martyrdom 

Dt^lights  of  life 

Design,  no  proof   of  God's 

wisdom 

Desecration  of  the  Statues  118 
Demosthenes  .  .  387 

Despise  not  youth     .  .     71 

Devils  at  Augsburg      -        -  388 
Development  of  Isaiahan 

ideas  -  -  .87 

Diction  and  style      -  .  383 

Disappointment  in  printed 

sermons        -  -  .  419 

Division  of  a  sermon  .  236 

Dust  -  -  .235 

Earnestness,  power  of  .     73 

how  to  gain        .  .  427 

Earthen  vessel,  the       .         .     16 
Eagle,  image  of  the        .       .  321 
Education  dependent  on  the 
man  .  .  .  375 

Back  wood  preachers,  of    32 

Educate  sympathy        .         .  385 
Effects  of  a  verse         .  .  293 

Edwards,  Jonathan  .  .     35 

s'  theology  and  preaching  36 

wonderful  sermon  .  377 

Eloquence — 

Dawson's,  William  .     12 

Chrysostom,  St.     .  .129 

Defined       .  .  .397 

Is  mind  in  motion  .  397 

Not  without  culture  .     46 

Of  Prettiness         .  .  396 

Shopkeeping,  style  of  .  209 
Test  of  tears,  proof  of  .  45 
Emotion  translated  by  sce- 
nery .  .  .336 
Entering  the  port  .  .  365 
Eudoxia,  Empress  .  .  125 
Evangelical  prophet,  the  .  77 
Evans,  Christmas — 

birth  and  parentage  ; 

early  years  ;  poverty  and 
toil ;    surrounded  by  de- 


438         Lamps ^  Pitcliers,  and  Tritmjyets. 


Page 
praving  influences;  sub- 
ject to  religions  impres- 
sions .  .  .  341 

Evans,  Christmas,  learns  to 
read  ;  goes  to  school ;  cru- 
elty of  his  companions       .  342 

remarkable  dream;  tena- 
cious memory  ;  first  efforts 
at  preaching  .  .  343 

painful  Christian  expe- 
rience ;  marriage  ;  charac- 
ter of  Mrs.  Evans  .  .  344 

removal  to  Anglesea  ; 

salary         .  .  .  345 

journey  to  South  Wales 

change  in  preaching;  won- 
derful results  .  .  346 

deep  spiritual  life         .  347 

solemn  covenant  with 

God  .  .  .  340 

character  of  his  ser- 
mons .  .  .  351 

Bunyan     of     Wales  ; 

master  of  personification  .  352 

remarkable  dreams      .  353 

illustration  of  me- 
thod  .  .  .    348-36G 

characteristics  of  preach- 
ing ...  367 

another  covenant  with 

God  .  .  .  371 

last  sermon — drive  on  .  373 

Excellences  of  the  Puritans.  227 

Exile,  return  from    .  .134 

Fable    of   the    cukoo    and 

nightingale  .  .  260 

Faults  and  beauties  of  Mul- 

lois  •  •  •  ^90 

Fancy,  copiousness  of  .  203 

Fashionable  preacher,  the  .  279 
Fathers  of  the  Early  Church  113 
Fear  not         .  .  .411 

Fellows  of  Swamp  Uni  versi  ty  30 
Feet  of  God,  the        .  .184 

Fiction  beneficial  for  teach 

ers  .  .  .  .  309 

Fill  uj)  the  cask        .  .421 

Filthy  sermons  .  .  259 

Five  gates  of  Mansoul  .    40 

Fluvio  .  .  .380 


Pa2:e 
Foundation  of  success,  the  .  378 

varieties  of  preaching  .  364 

Fox,  George .  .  .10 

Frater  Diabolus        .  .  149 

Francois  de  Sales,  quotation 

from  .  .  .423 
Free  Speech  in  the  Church  .  197 
French  Refugee,  the  .  320 
Friar  preachers,  great  .  151 
results  of  their  preach- 
ing ...  20 
Functions  of  humour  .  251 
Fueral  sermon,  a  .  .  191 
Gideon,  history  of  .  .7 
Glorious  song,  a  .  .  242 
Goads  and  nails  .  .  45 
God,  all  in  all            .            .  123 

arranger  of  all  things  .  407 

boundless  loving-kind- 
ness of        .  .  .  119 

Divine  power  of  .  105 

dethroned  by  modern 

Pantheists  .  .  303 

in  a  circle  .  .  246 

judgments  of    .  .  266 

paints  in  oil      .  .  293 

providence  in  history  .     86 

our  protector    .  .411 

righteousness  of  .  326 

Good  swimmer  needed,  a  .  28 
Gospel  mould,  the    .  .  353 

Milch  cow,  a         .  .280 

Gousset's  method  with  texts-  320 
Graduates  of  Brush  College  30 
Great  Friar  Preachers  .  151 

their  aim  .  .152 

Gratitude  among  friends  .  264 
Guizot  quoted  .  .  301 

Hanging  the  devil   .  .  289 

Harangues  of  Napoleon  .  423 
Harms'  three  L's       .  .  422 

Hearer  and  reader     .  .  293 

Hearers'  suspicions   .  .  395 

Must  understand  .  .  384 

Heaven,  written  in   .  .  241 

Hebrews,  a  nation  of  i^ro- 
phets,  the   .  .  .75 

Isaiah  sublimest  of      .    77 

prophet's  mission,  the  ,     76 

poetry    .  .  .51 

'*  He  kens  about  leather"    .  385 


Index. 


439 


Page 
Hell,  pictures  of  .  149,  156 
Henry  I.  and  St.  Bernard  .  180 
Herder's     definition    of    a 

sermon       .  .  .  227 

Hibbard,  Billy  .  .     81 

Hind  let  loose,  the    .  .  204 

History,  study  of  God,  the   .    86 

of  the  Church    .  .104 

free  speech,  of  .  .  196 

Hi^h  models,  have  .  .  377 

Hill,  Rowland  .  .  280 

Hall's  estimate  of         .  281 

Illustration  of  humour    282 

How  to  free  the  spirit  .     45 

Puritans  treated    the 

Bible  .  .  .213 

we  know  men  exist      .  302 

Horace,  aphorisms  from  378, 

378,  418, 423,  428 
House,  an  allegory,  the        .  296 
Humour — 
Functions  of  .  .  251 

Antony's  of  Vieyra  .  268 

Berridge,  John      .  .  275 

Bradbury's  .  .  283 

Hill's,  Rowland     .  .  280 

Dawson's  W.         .  .  274 

Kruber,  Jacob        .  .  277 

Sancta  Clara  .  .  273 

Illustrations  of 

Beelzebub  and  his  Hogs  257 
Carnifex  and  Robinson  .  288 
God  and  His  only  Son  .  283 
Gospel,  a  milch  cow,  the  280 
Devil's  devices   .  .  282 

Fashionable  preacher  .  277 
Fine  Preaching .  ,  .  282 
Old  Jemmy's  discourse  .  253 
Prodigal  son      .  .  273 

Professor  and  sow  .  281 

Sermon  to  fishes  .  268 

Before  a  king  .  264 

Way  to  serve  misers  .  281 
"We  shall  be  like  him"  287 
Welsh  preachers  .  255 

Coarse     .  .  252 

Profane  ,  .  .262 

Jacob  began  to  wrestle  262 
"  Me  and  my  house"  .  263 
Romanist's  discourse  .  258 
Simple,  John      .  .261 


Page 

Ignorance  and  preaching  .  378 
Illustrations — 

Guthrie,  Dr.  use  of  .  334 

On  the  use  of        .  .  335 

How  to  use  them  .  .  336 

Worth  of   .            .  .  308 

Of  the  dark  lantern,  an  .  334 

Fog  and  the  Silver  Sea  .  834 

Regalia,  the           .  .  334 
Illustrations  of  style — 

Afflictions  .            .  .239 

Of  the  righteous  .     55 

Almost  a  Christian  .     75 

Beam,  the .            ,  .366 

Be  thankful           .  .  238 
Boundless  loving-kindness  119 

Burial  rites            .  .  131 

Christ,  birth  of      .  .  242 

Conqueror     .  .  243 

the  cedar  of  Lebanon  358 

Clouds                    .  .  245 

Delights  of  life      .  .  106 

Devils  at  Augsburg  .  388 

David's  service      .  .  2G8 

Duty  of  praise       .  .108 

Dust            .           - .  .235 

Entering  the  port  .  365 

Exile's  return,  the  .  192 
Fashionable  preacher,  the  279 

"  Fear  not"             .  .  411 

Feet  of  God,  the    .  .  184 

Funeral  Sermon,  a  .  190 

God  in  a  circle       .  ,  246 

"All  in  air  .  .  183 

judgments  of  .263 

without         .  .207 

tf of  peace           .  .  206 

's  work  and  means  .  105 

Glorious  song,  a    .  .  242 

Gospel  mould,  the  .  353 

Heaven  written  in  .  23  * 

Hind  let  loose        .  .  204 

of  tlu)  morning  .  359 

Jericho,  fall  of      .  .  158 
Journey    of    the    young 

Child       .         -   .  .362 

Kirjath  Sephor       .  .  223 

Life  a  structure     .  .  406 

"  Many  called  '      .  .  140 

Man  in  the  steel  house  .  354 

Mv  grace  sufficient  .  404 


440         Lamps^  Pitcliers^  and  Trumpets. 


Page 
Illustrations  of  Style,  cont'd 
Mysterious  packet  .  356 

Modern  Pharisee   .  .  383 

New  begetting      .  .  244 

Palace  of  Abraham  .  132 

Pictures  of  Hell    .  .  156 

Peace  with  conscience       .  205 
Prodigal  Son,  the  .  273 

Psalmody  .  .  .108 

Sermon  to  fishes,  a  .  268 

Salvation  of  the  thief       .  129 
Say  well,  do  well  .  .  198 

Sin  the  cause  of  death      .  415 
Skin  for  a  skin      .  .     63 

Such  a  voice  .  .  234 

Soul's  flight  .  .  161 

"  Take  thou  thy  son"       .  241 
Tents  of  Kedar      .  .  188 

Wise  men  of  the  East       .     15 
Imagination — 

Use  and  abuse  of  .  ,  334 

Real  use  of  .  .  335 

What  is      .  .  .  332 

Window,  a  .  .333 

Seizes  the  innermost         .  296 
When  most  powerful        .  251 
Improvement  in  Sermons  410 
Instincts,  the  two     .  .165 

for  souls,  the     .  .     26 

Intellect  and  will      .  .     43 

Invincible  Armada,  the        .     52 
Inutility  of  sermons,  the      .  392 
Isaiah — 
~ —  sublimest  prophet,  the     77 

Dante  of  Judaea,  the    .     77 

model  preacher,  a        .     77 

evangelical     prophet,    • 

the.  .  .  .77 

centre  of  philosophy,     78 

what  the  future  reveal- 
ed to  .  .  .79 

's  vision  in  the  temple  .    80 

's  burden  typical  .     83 

's  ideas  developing        .     87 

pathos  of  .  .88 

comprehensiveness  of  .     89 

Jacob  wrestling  .            .  262 

Jesus  flavouring  mediaeval 

sermons      .  .            .  143 

Jeremiadizing  .            .    35 


Jericho,  fall  of 
Jonah  in  the  whale 
Joseph  yet  alive 


Page 
.  158 
.  14 
.  143 


Kedar,  tents  of  .  .  188 

King  and  Harpist     .  .    40 

Kirjath-Sepher  .  .  223 

Kite  and  Mr.  Caxton,  the    .  321 
Knight  Templars,  exhorta- 
^  tion  to        .  .  .  177 

Knowledge  of  mediaeval  ser- 
mons .  .  .  138 
Kruber,  Jacob,  anecdotes  of.     30 

Lamartine  on  the  pulpit  .  393 
Language,  nature  of  .      8 

Lamps,    &c.,   of  the   early 
Church       .  .  .103 

Jewish  Church  .     75 

Last  of  the  Fathers  .  .  1 95 

Law  of  parables        .  .  308 

Learned  sermons,  folly  of  .  285 
Legends  of  the  Church  72,  73,  74, 
128, 147, 149. 
Letter  without  direction,  the  382 
Let  us  be  thankful   .  .  238 

Limitations      of     trumpet 

power         .  .  .10 

Little  bird's  sermon,  a  .  314 
Live  for  Christ  .  .  408 

Logic,  the,  harness  of  .    36 

Logical    impossibility,    Di- 
vine possibility      .  .     37 
Look  high  and  aim  high     .  377 
Luther's  Letter  to  Johnny   .  389 

Macaulay's  Spanish  Armada  52 
Madness  of  preaching  friars  142 
Magnetic  power  of  great  lives  91 
Man  and  God's  work  .  105 

seeketh  wisdom  .    43 

unstable,  an      .  .  231 

's    nature    determines 

moral  analogies     ,  .304 

soul  a  captive  king      .     42 

Manshire,  subjects  of  •  215 

Mansoul,  town  of      .  39 

waking  people  in  the  .    41 

"  Many  called,  few  chosen"  .  140 
Martineau  on  Butler's  Ana- 

logy  .  .  .297 


Index. 


441 


Martyrdom  of  De  la  Croix 

Caturce,  Master 

Maxey,  Antony 
Meanness  and  grossness 
Mediate  for  souls 
Mediaeval  preachers 


Page 

.     23 

.  204 
.  274 

.    74 
.  138 


■  records,  unattainable  of  138 


works  on 

bathos   . 

Men  and  their  age   . 
Metaphysical  sermons 
Methodism     . 

romance  of 

heroism 

American 

Microcosm  sermons  . 
Mind,  what  may  awaken  the 
Minister  as  a  ijrofessor,  the  . 

criticism  on  a   . 

a   light-house  keeper, 

the. 
Modern  Pharisee 
Monastic  reformer    . 
Moral  analogies 
Motto  for  the  pulpit 

for  a  sneerer    . 

Moses  a  prophet 

Mullois,     Abbe,    pleas    for 

brevity 


139 

145 

139 

285 

24 

24 

25 

27 

219 

42 

3V6 

423 

,  72 
,  383 
137 
304 
421 
391 
7G 

426 

197 


Names,  unknown     . 
Napoleon's  intended  inva- 
sion .  .  .54 
Nationality  of  Hebrew  poet- 
ry  .            .            .            .51 
Natural  symmetry  in  ser- 
mons          .            .            .  410 
Nature,  symbolic      .            .  314 

how  our  Lord  regarded  304 

Neander  quoted        .  .104 

's  works  .  .139 

Nelson's,  John,  sublime  affec- 
tion .  .  .27 
Nervousness,  pulpit  power  .  399 
Nil  Admirari  .  .  377 
Neibuhr,  quoted  .  .  104 
Nothing  to  say,  and  no  sub- 
ject            .            .            .384 

Object  of  Lecture  T.  .  .9 

Obtaining  smoke  from  light  418 


Page 
Old  Jemmy,  preaching  of  .  252 
Old  Jemmy's  discourse  .253 
Orator,  virtue  of  the  .  429 

Ostentatious  man,  the  .     34 

Paint  your  ideas       •  .  309 

Painter  and  preacher  .     23 

Painter's  materials,  the        .  293 
Parable  the : — 

Pagan  maxim,  a   .  .  377 

Beauty  and  power  of  .  308 
And  personification  .  310 

A  spoken  picture  .  .311 

Goethe  delighted  to  use  .  309 
Great  teachers  use  .  308 

Law  of        .  .  .309 

Power  of  Bunyan,  the  .  309 
Popularity  of  Evans,  the  .  309 
In  the  pulpit         .  .314 

Place  and  power  of  .  312 

Used  by  all  nations  .  310 

(.uckoo  and  nightingale  .  200 
Darning-needle,  of  the  .  311 
Kite,  the    .  .  .313 

Abraham  and  the  strang</r, 

of         .  .  .314 

Bird's  sermon,  the  .  315 

Journey  of  the  young  child  362 
Parables,   diagrams  of  the- 
ology .  .  .309 

for  the  pulpit    .      146,  313 

Parsons,   James,   character- 
istics of      .  .  .  415 

art  of  natural  symmetry  418 

style       .  .  .418 

Passion  of  the  Cross  .     12 

Pastor,  a  shepherd,  the        .  144 

provided  for      .  .  260 

Paul,  St. :— 

epic  hero  of  the  Church    91 

manifold  powers  of      .     91 

character  of      .  .92 

power  of  reasoning      .     93 

unaccountableness  of  .     93 

Augustine  and  .     94 

intense  ardour  .  .     95 

epistles,  character  of    .     95 

a  man  for  sceptics        .     96 

an     evidence    of    the 

Christian  system  .  .     96 
St.  Bernard  and  .    97 


442         Lamps  J  Pitchers^  and  Trumpets. 


Page 


Christian  System,  contin'd 

the  aged 

comprehensiveness    of 

character    . 

touched  three  civiliza- 

zations 

courage  and  tact 

shipwreck 

defence  before  Felix     . 

craving    for  personal 

sympathy  . 

■ various  estimates  of    . 

Jowett's,  Stanley's  and 

Newman's 
Personal  Application 
Perspiration  for  inspiration 
Pitcher,  embellishments  of 

the; 
Philosophic  carpenter,  the   . 
Physical  suffering    : 
Play  fere,  Thomas,  character- 
istics of      . 
Poetry,  two  stages  of 

of  passion,  the  . 

of  culture,  the  . 

Polyramus     . 

Potter's  Sacred  Eloquence  . 

Power  of  Great  Mountains 

the 

Prayer  of  an  ancient  bishop   307 
Praying  and    working  in- 
stinct .  .  .  1G5 
Preacher,  the,  an  awakener 
of  conscience         .          11,  75 

an  instructor     .  .    47 

a  builder  of  life  .  150 

a  pitcher  .  8 

a  lamp  .  .  .13 

a  trumpet  .  .10 

bold  French,  a  .  .21 

Backwood         .  .     30 

dangers  of         .  25,  28 

every,  a  Blondel  .     41 

feeling  the  pulse  of  his 

hearers       .  .  .  405 

for  the  poor      .  .     35 

no  posthumous  fame  for  418 

model,  the         .  .    77 

must  say  well  and  do 

well  .  .  .198 
making  a  cold  .            .  323 


98 


99 
100 
100 
100 

100 
101 

102 
253 

47 

33 

286 
404 

198 

48 

49 

49 

379 

430 

326 


Page 
Preacher,  the,  must  be   an 

artist           .             .  .9 

metaphysical   .  .     32 

quotation  from  .  .     36 

preliminaries    in    the 

vocation  of             .  .43 

respect  for        .  .  392 

sacred  pathologist,  a  .  403 

should  be  national  .     53 

true  work  of     .  .  208 

souls,  for            .  .    44 

Wormwood  Valley,  in    183 

Preacher's  vocation  .  .     39 

queer  day's  work,  a  .     66 

model  in  the  prophets  .     49 

Preachers,  great  Friar  ,  196 

mediaeval           .  .138 

little  known  .  138 

versus  singers    .  .  418 

Preaching,  Artist  faculty  in       9 

Aretinus's          .  .  153 

Art  of    .            .  .45 

Berthold  of  Ratisbon  .  151 

Beruardine  of  Sienna  .  151 

Bossuet's            .  .  208 

Caturce's  master  .     22 

conscience  to  the  8,  46,  401 

Corvino's,  John  .  151 

Chalmers',  Dr.  .  .  333 

effects  of  unwise  .  380 

Evans,  Christmas  .  366 

experience  to     .  .8 

faithfulness  in  .  .  135 

four  varieties  of  .  364 

foolish,  of  great  men  .  262 

Francis,  St.        .  .  153 

Friars'  madness  in  .  142 

great  social  influence,  a.  118 

harangue,  method  of  .  380 

intellect,  to  the .  .      8 

James  I.  day,  in  .  241 

Jerome's             .  .  153 

Luther's  maxims  in  .  423 

Neri,  Philip       .  .  152 

no  art  necessary  in  .     44 

painful   .            .  .215 

Paul  at  Athens,  of  .  316 

Padua's,  Anthony,  of  .  152 

Robinson's,  llobert  .     64 

— —  Roco's,  Fra  .  .  153 
Smith's  Henry  .  .    25 


Index. 


443 


Page 
Preacliing,  Scriptural  .  140 

surprise  power  in         .11 

tendency  to  blaspheme 

in     .  .  .  .260 

true  methods  of  .  379 

to  people  .  .     46 

various  styles  of  .  379 

verbose  .  .  .  381 

Whitefield's       .  .     37 

"    rule  in        .  .  422 

Precision        .  .  .  388 

Priest  and  layman    .  .     70 

Principles  vevsm  prejudices  70 
Prodigal  Son,  the      .  .  273 

Prophet,  a  Divine  institution, 

the  .  .  .76 

Prophets,  Hebrew    .  .     75 

Protestantism,   ages  of  the 

press  .  .  .  196 

birth  of  Puritanism      .  197 

historv  of  Free  Speech  196 

Psalmody  "     .  .  .108 

Pugilism  vei'sus  Christianity  264 


Publican  and  Pharisee 

Pulpit,  the— 

Andersen,  Hans  C,  in 
Code  of  law  for 
Droll  of      . 
Freaks  of  speech  in 
Freedom  needed  in 
Humanity  needed  in 
Light  in  dark  ages,  a 
Literature  of 

humorous 

Means  of  education,  a 
Monographs  91,  113,  162, 


289 


Mottoes  for 


Men  of  St.  Paul's  Cross 
Parables  in 
Protestant 

twofold  energies  of 

Punch  of    . 
Reformer    . 

Repertory  of  anecdote,  a 
Romance  of 

Methodism     . 

American 

"  preachers 

Versus  Art 

Times  newspaper,  a 


120 
392 
273 
290 
292 
293 
139 
292 
292 
293 
229 
339 
418-422 


17; 


283 

146 

196 

197 

285 

156 

290 

23 

24 

24 

25 

26 

285 


Page 
Pulpit,  the —  conti7iued 
Wit,  humor,  and  coarse- 
ness in     .  .  .  249 

Worthlessnesss  of  .     25 

DifFuseness  of  the  .  .215 

Modern  Divines,  and  .  214 
Method  with  the  Bible  213 
Mystics       .  .  .  222 

Queer  oddities  of  the  .  217 
Sermons  microcosms  .  219 
Treasures  of  mystical  Di 

vinity      .  .  .223 

Well-bottomed  men  .  218 

Works,  were  preached      .  222 

Puritan  worthies,  defects  and 
excellencies  of        .  .  227 

Puritanical  sermon,  fate  of  a  213 

Queer  day's-work       .  .     66 

Quiet  resting-places  quoted    404 
Quirks    and    quiddities    of 
speech         .  .  .  217 

Radiation  and  vibration       .     12 
Raleigh,  Dr.  Alexander  398 

Rationalism  .  .  .  112 

Reason  and  speech    .  .      8 

Reader  and  hearer     .  .  293 

Rhetoric,  flower  of    .  .107 

Richard  I.  and  Blondel  .     40 

Right  spirit,  the        .  .     50 

Ringing  changes  on  a  word    235 
Robinson,  Robert : — 

early  life  .  .    59 

style,  53 — satire  .     60 

obscurity  55,  conversion    62 

teaches;  studies  .     62 

compared  with  Beveridge  62 

thorough  Dissenter       .     62 

-• —  ridicules  Church  forms.    63 
Expositions    of    Scrip- 
ture .  .  .63 

skin  for  a  skin  .  .     63 

Praising    God    in    the 

morning     .  .  .64 

singular  day's  work      .     66 

traits  of  character         .     69 

death  63— style  .     69 

Romance  of  the  pulpit  .     17 
MctliodisTn         .             .     2S 


444        LamjpSj  Piicliers^  and  Trumpets. 


Page 
Romance,  Methodism,  Ame- 
rican .  .  .30 
Rude  Clergyman,  The  .     60 
Ruskin  and  Art          .             .  176 

Sad  reflection,  a        .  .  413 
Say  well  and  do  well  .  198 
Scriptures   one  great   argu- 
ment          .            .  .  323 
Schleirmacher  quoted  .     67 
Secular  and  spiritual  knight- 
hood           .            .  .23 
Self-denial  necessary  .  291 
Sergeant K    .            .  .276 
Sermons  : — 
Anthony  Maxey,  of  .  205 
Age  for  printing    .  .  415 
Bede,  of      .            .  .  139 
Before  a  king         .  .  264 
Brevity  in               .  .  423 
Coarse        .             .  .  259 
Definition  of          .  .  227 
Delivered,  more  powerful  .     26 
Filthy         .            .  .  259 
Francois,  St.,  pleas  for  .  423 
Improvement  in     .  .  410 
Natural  symmetry  of  .  410 
Old  John  Stoughton's  .  205 
Parsons'  James      .  .  414 
Printed       .             .  .419 
Some  old    .            .  .  246 
Should  be  plain     .  .  425 
Should  be,  what     •  .422 
Trifle           .            .  .49 
Three  truths  for    .  .  422 
What  the  music  is  of  .  424 
Sin,  punishment  of    .  .  417 
Segneri,  Father 
inflamed  with  mission- 
ary ardor    .            .  .155 

a  recluse            .  .  1 55 

home  missionary  .  156 

pulpit  reformer  .  156 

earnestness        .  .  156 

hell  a  reality  to  .156 

an  Italian  Whitefield  .  161 

Shakespeare  of  the  Puritans, 

the  .            ,            ,  ,  ^20 
Skin  for  a  skin          .  .     63 
Smith  a^d   Robinson   com- 
pared         .            .  .58 


Page 
242 
161 
70 
264 
266 


268 

431 

52 


Song,  glorious,  a 
Soul's  flight  . 

how  to  reach 

South,  Robert 

characteristics 

estimate   of  the  Puri 

tans 
Source  of  obscurity,  a 
Spanish  Armada,  the 
Speech,  element  of  successful  426 

power  of  .  .23 

teaches  us  what  .    44 

Spectator,  quotation  from  .  391 
Speculative  and  practical  life  186 
Spirit,  a  captive,  being,  the  37 
Spirit,  the  essential  part  of  .  386 
Spirit,  how  to  fire  the 

of  the  world 

of  the  prophets 

Spiritual  Joe  Miller,  a 
Stanley's     Jewish     Church, 

quotations  from     . 
Strange  causading  army 
Strength  of  stateliness 
Style  :-> 

Adams',  Puritan    . 

Andrewes',  Bishop 

Antony  of  Vieyra 

Athanasius's 

Augustine's,  St. 

Bernard's  St. 

Basil's,  St. 

Bernard's,  Richard 

Cause  of,  powerless 

Clemen's     . 

Chrysostom's  St.    . 

Colloquial,  the 

Dawson's,  William 

Diction  and 

Everard's,  John 

Evans',  Christmas . 

Every  man  makes  his 

Formation  of 

Kruber's,  Jacob 

Luther's 

Maclaven's  . 

May  be  too  good    . 

Origen's 

0\\  i;poi;  marble    . 

Playfere's.  Thomas 

Prepjsion  ^n 


55 

50 

51 

153 

50 
178 
226 


.  231 
14,  237 
.  268 
.  106 
.  Ill 
.  183 
.  108 
.  215 
.  383 
.  105 
.  119 
.  383 
.  14 
.  382 
.  223 
.  351 
.  226 
.  375 
.  277 
.  387 
.  382 
.  384 
.  105 
.  381 
.  199 
.  883 


Index. 


445 


Page 
Parish  pump           .  .  288 
Parsons,  James       .  .417 
Robinson's,  Robert  .     63 
Soutli's,  Robert      .  .  265 
Sancta's,  Clara        .  .  273 
Slioplieeping"          .  .  210 
Segneri's,  Father  .  .  155 
Stoughton's,  John  .  205 
"  Sling-and  stone  "  .  380 
Smitli's,  Henry       .  .     55 
Sterrj's,  Peter        .  .  226 
Tertullian's            .  .  106 
Trapp's,  Commentator  ,  221 
Studying  the  Fathers,  mo- 
tives for      .            .  .106 
Sublime  affection       .  .     26 
Subjective  and  objective  .     44 
Such  a  voice  .            .  .  234 
Success  #B  gained,  how  .  385 
Suffering,  varieties  of  .  405 
Surprise  power,  the  .  .11 
Sursum  Corda            .  .     21 
Sympathy  essential  to  suc- 
cess             .            .  .  401 

"  Take  now  thy  son  "  .  241 

Taste,  improved,  in  sermons  250 
Tears,  test  of  .  .45 

Tedious  preaching     .  *  215 

Test  of  penitence       .  .  153 

Theatre  and  chapel  .  .  208 

Thief,  salvation  of  the  .  130 

Theremin,  on  the  orator       .  395 
Thought,  modern      .  .  300 

Times  of  James  I.,  preaching 

in  the  .  .  .241 

Three  methods  of  sowing    .  378 
Tongue,  the  .  .  .237 

Trapp,  John 

characteristics  of  style  .  £20 

compared     with     Mat- 
thew Henry  .  .  220 

-; how  he  treated,  Scrip- 

'  ture  .  .  .  220 

and  modern  Bible  critics  221 

languageof        .  ,  221 

Orma's  criticism  on       .  222 

Truth  makes  eloquence,  the  395 
Truths  learned  too  late        .  334 


Page 

Truths  neglected      .  .  334 

Trumpets  of  the  Church  .     10 

purposes  of        .  .11 

Two  audiences,  the  .  .     47 

Universality      of     arrange- 
ment          .            .  .  325 
Unity  of  God — Isaiah's  phi- 
losophy      .            .  .78 
Unpolished  audience,  the  .     48 
Use  of  books  and  speech  .  294 

trumpets             .  .11 

Unstable  man,  the    .  .  292 

Valley  of  Wormwood,  the  .  1G9 

Various  agencies  of  death  .  416 

Vase  and  the  pitcher  .     17 

Vibration  and  Radiation  .     11 

Vocation  of  the  preacher  .     39 

to  arrest  souls   .  .     73 

with  souls          .  .     44 

Voice,  such  a              .  .  234 


What  modern  divines  are 
lacking 

Where  to  get  a  suit  . 

Way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air   . 

What  colleges  fit  students 
for  . 

What  makes  mind  ?  . 

Well -bottomed  men  . 

Welsh  preacher,  story  of  a 

Wife  like  a  ship,  a    . 

W^it,  humor,  and  coarseness  248 

Wisdom  sought  through  de- 
sire 

Words,  absurd  use  of 

awakened  Protestanism 

of    . 

Words,  furnish  your  memory 
with 

power  of 

prophets,  of  the 

proper  use  of     . 

what  are 

study 

take  care  of 

Word  painting 

Worth  of  illustration 


214 
210 
321 

392 
.  42 
.  218 
.  255 

210 


43 
33 

208 

375 
376 

75 
376 
376 
376 

44 
333 
308 


INDEX  OF  TEXTS  REFERRED  TO. 


Genesis,  iii.,  19 

ix.,  13     . 

xxii.,  2    . 

xlv.,  26 

xlix.,  21  . 

xlix.,  21  . 

Exodus,  iv.,  11 
Joshua,  vi.,  16 
Judges,  v.,  30 

v.,  31      . 

vii.,17,22, 

2  Samuel,  xxii.,  16 
2  Kings,  xviii.,  36 
Esther,  vii.,  9 
Job,  ii.,  4 

xxxix.,  27-29 
Psalms,  v.,  3  . 

xvi.,  7     . 

xix.,  1     . 

xix.,  5    . 

xxii.,  1    . 

XXX.,  6    . 

xxxiv.,  15 

xxxvi.,  7 

xlv.,  1     . 

xlv.,  13   . 

Iviii.,  11 . 

Ixxvii.,  10 

Ixxvii.,  13 

Ixxxiii.,  4 

Ixxxiii ,  7 

Ixxxvii.,  1 

Ixxxvii.,  3 

xciv.,  2   . 

ciii.,  4     . 

cxviii.,  6 
Proverbs  xxxi.  14 

viii.,  1 

ii.,8 

iv.,  2 
Ecclesiastes,  xii.,  2 
Songs  of  Solomon,  i., 
Isaiah,  i.,  18  . 

ii.,  5 

xiii.,  12  . 

XXX.,  13 . 

xl.,  2   . 

xl.,  8   . 

li.,14,  . 

446 


Page 
.  285 
.  258 
.  240 
.  143 
.  55 
.  204 
.  76 
.  160 
.  52 
.  55 
.  7 
.  329 
.  289 
.  288 
.  63 
.  324 
.  65 
.  131 
.  64 
.  185 
.  359 
.  326 
.  46 
.  131 
.  37 
.  206 
.  178 
.  328 
.  267 
.  54 
.  53 
.  330 
.  161 
.  151 
.  17 
.  130 
.  20 
.  43 
.  359 
.  223 
.  45 
.  188 
.  50 
.  79 
.  85 
.  160 
.  14 
.  88 
.  41 


Isaiah  Iv.,  1  . 
Jeremiah,  x.,  24 
Ezekiel,  x.,  14 

xxxii.,  32 
Matthew,  iii.,  3 

xi.,  15  . 

xiii.,  34  . 

xii.,  43  . 

xiii.,  45  • 

XX.,  16  . 

XXV.,  46 
Mark,  xvi.,  16 
Luke,  xxiii,,  43 
John,  St.,  iii.,  12 

iv.,  11  . 

viii.,  31  . 

Vii.,  24  . 

xiv.,  15  . 

xiv.,  22  . 
Acts,  1,7 

viii.,  30  . 

xxvi.,  8  . 
Romans,  v.,  12 

vi.,  24  . 

viii.,  35  . 

viii.,  39  . 

1  Corinthians,  iii.,  10 

2  ii.,  11  . 
2  ii.,  13  . 
2  iv.,  8  . 
2  iv.,7  . 
2  xii.,  9  . 
Ephesians,  ii.,  20 

iv.,  21     . 
Philippians,  i.,  21 

iii.,  8      . 
1  Thessalonians  vi.,  3 
1  Timothy,  iv.,  1 

1  iv.,12  . 

2  ii.,  15  . 
Hebrews,  iii. ,  14 
James,  i.,  21  . 

1  Peter,  iv.,  7 

2  iii.,  8  . 
2  i.,11  • 
1  John,  ii.,  24 
Revelation,  i.,  18 

iv.,       7: 


INDEX  OF  NAMES  REFERRED  TO. 


Antonio    (of   Vieyra),   142,   144, 

267,  272 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  232 
Arcadius,  Emperor,  128 
Arkwright,  Sir  R.,  59 
Arius,  72 
Arnold,  Dr.,  15 
Ashbury,  Bishop,  28,  29,  31 
Athanasius,  106,  107 
Augustine,  St.,  45,  90,  109,  136, 

232,  308 
Austin,  William,  208 
Adelbart,  St.,  151 
Abelard,  Peter,  166,  193 
Adams,   Thomas,  228,  229,  237, 

245,  246,  248 
Alderson,  Baron,  305 
Alfred,  King,  97 
Alexander,  Dr.  James,  421 
Alexander,  King,  98 
Andersen,  Hans  C,  146 
Andrewes,  Bishop,  13,  238,  246 
Anacletus  II.,  Pope,  179 
Angus,  Dr.,  229.  230 
Anthony   St.,  143,  151 

Bacon,  Lord,  247,  309 
Barrow,  Isaac,  226,  228 
Basil,  St.,  108,  107,  106,  128 
Barton,  Dr.  297 
Baxter,  Kichard,  91 
Bede,  136 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  294 
Belle w,  Rev.  J.  C.  M.,  316,  319 
Bellamy,  Dr.,  421 
Bernardine,  St.,  152,  153 
Bernard,  R,  215 

Bernard,  St,  145,  162, 164,  165, 
166, 167, 168, 169, 170-195,  418 


Berkeley,  Bishop,  296 
Berridge,  John,  274.  275 
Berthold,  151 
Blake,  Robert,  24 
Blondel,  40 

Bolingbroke,  Lord,  387 
Bogue,  Dr.,  280 
Bonaventura,  143 
Bossuet,  208,  387 
Bostwick,  Dr.,  31 
Boyd,  A.  K.  H,  410 
Boyle,  Robert,  301 
Bradbury,  Thomas,  283,  284 
Bridges,  Rev.  Charles,  46 
Brooks,  Thomas,  227 
Brooks,  Mr.,  133 
Brown,  Bishop,  297 
Brown,  Dr.  John,  333 
Browne,  Sir  T.,  236 
Brougham,  Lord,  387,  426 
Browninj^,  Robert,  16 
Brummel,  Beau,  248 
Buchanan,  Dr.,  301 
Burleigh,  Lord,  55 
Bunyan,  John,  350,  366 
Burgess,  J.,  257 
Burgundy,  Duke  of,  164 
Butler,  Bishop,  297,  298,  299 
Byron,  Lord,  336 

Calvin,  69,  106 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  176 
Cartwright,  Peter,  263 
Caturce,  Master,  22 
Cervantes,  268 
Chalmers,  Dr.,  333 
Charles  I,  204 
Chatham,  Earl,  387, 426 
Charlemagne,  98 

(447) 


448  Index  of  Names  Hef  erred  to. 


Chrysostora,  St.,  104,  105,  106, 
109,  110,  114  116,  117,  118, 
120,  121,  126,  129,  131,  136, 
155 

Cicero,  75 

Clayton,  Jobn,  382 

Clemens,  105 

Cobbett,  W.,  59 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  33,  333 

Colet,  Dean,  285 

Columbus,  300 

Compte,  304 

Constantine,  Emperor,  113,  120 

Corvino,  John,  151 

Coster,  Francis,  146 

Cowper,  W.,  220 

Cromwell,  O.,  264 

Cross,  Mr.,  341,  367 

B'Aubigne,  22 

D'Alembert,  397 

Dawson,  W.,  12,  283,  284 

Davies,  Daniel,  341 

Deborah,  52,  76 

De  Janson  (Cardinal)  258 

De  la  Croix,  (Alex.)  18 

Delitzsch,  213 

Demosthenes,  13,  75,  98, 426 

Dionysius,  93 

De  Sales,  St.  Francis.  423,  429 

Dickens,  (Charles),  338 

Digby,  Kenelm,  139 

Donne,  Dr.,  209,  241,  245,  247 

Earle,  Bishop,  231 
Ebrard,  213 
Echard,  209 
Edwards,  Dr.,  384 

Jonathan,  35,  93,  309,398 
Elton,  Edward,  220 
Eudoxia,  Empress,  125, 
Evans,  Christmas,  309,  313,  338, 

339-374 
Everard,  Dr.,  93,  223 
Ewald,  213 
Ezekiel,  196 

Flavianus,  118 
Flavella,  Empress,  X18 
Frederick  II,  152 
Forster,  Dr.,  299 


Foster,  John,  333 
Fox,  C.  J.,  70 

C,  10 
Francis  of  Assisse,  142 
Franklin,  Dr.  B.,  292 
Fuller,  Thomas,  55 

Gall,  St.,  151 

Gattv,  Mrs.,  146,  309 

Gerund,  Friar,  290 

Gibbon,  W.,  109,  121 

Gill,  Dr.,  62 

Goethe,  309 

Goodman,  Godfrey,  227 

Gouge,  Thomas,  220 

Gould,   Baring,   138,    139,    140, 

146 
Gousset,  Father,  321 
Gregory,  Nazianzen,  104, 108, 154 
Grosart,  218 
Grote,  86 
Guthrie,  Dr.,  334 
Guarric  of  Igniac,  143 
Guizot,  M.,  385,  401 

Hall,  Robert,  59,  61,  374,  426 
Hallam,  H,  387 
Hamilton,  Dr.  James,  307 
Harding,  Stephen,  107 
Harvey,  300 
Hay  don,  24 
Hegel,  35,  299,  303 
Heloise,  193 
Hengstenberg,  213 
Hennel,  Miss,  298,  299 
Henry  I.,  180 

M.,  110,  220, 
Herbert.  G.,  14,  91,  229,  237 
Hibbard,  W.,  31 

Hill,  Rowland,  278,  280,  281,  431 
Hitchcock,  Pro.,  302 
Homer,  332 

Honrious,  II,  (Pope)  178 
Hooker,  Richard,  91, 196,  226 

Herman,  410 
Hooper,  H.,  196 
Horace,  48,  377, 378  391, 418, 425, 

430 
Ilowson,  Dr.,  96, 101 
Hume,  David,  192,  298,  299 
Huntingdon,  Lady,  27 


Index  of  Names  Referred  to.         449 


Innocent,  II,  (Pope),  179,  181 
Irving,  Edward,  106,  385,  420 

Jacobi,  71 
James,  I,  209 
James  John,  Angell,  73 
Jay,  William,  283 
Jermin,  Michael,  220 
Jerrold,  Douglas,  311 
Jerome,  St.,  153 
Johnson,  Dr.,  369,  422 
Jones,  Theophilus,  282 
Jowett,  Pro.,  101,  102 
Julian,  Emperor,  108 

Keble,  John,  14 
Keene,  Henry,  66 
Kempis,  Thomas  a.,  152 
Knox,  John,  91 
Keil,  213 
Kruber,  Jacob,  30,  31 

Lamartine,  A.,  393 

Lange,  213 

Latimer,  Bishop,  91, 197,  313 

Laud,  Archbishop,  247 

La  Touche,  Treville,  Admiral,  54 

Lenz,  Dr.,  151 

Lewis,  341 

Leopold,  I,  273 

Libanius,  115 

Lightfoot,  214 

Louis,  VII,  194 

Louis,  XIII,  208 

Louis,  XIV,  387,  418 

Luther,  91,  387, 423 

Lytton,  Lord,  399 

Mackintosh,  Sir,  J.,  298 
Macaulay,  Lord,  52 
Maclaren,  381 
Mansell,  Professor,  303 
Maitland,  Dr.,140 
Martineau,  J.,  297 
Massillon,  426 
Maxey,  (Anthony),  204 
Maurus,  Rabinius,  140 
Maximian,  Emperor,  128 
Mentz,  Archbishop,  140 
Melville,  Henry,  323 
Milburn,  H.,  252 


Milman,  Dean,  121,122, 142 
Milton,  John,  226 
Monica,  109,  115 
Morison,  J.  C,  186 
Moule,  Horace,  103,  111 
Montague,  Sir  H.,  230 
Mullois,    Abbe,   390,    392,    395, 
418 

Napoleon,  54,  332 
Neale,  Dr.,  138, 140 
Neander,  Dr.,  104, 139 
Nelson,  Admiral,  54 
Nelson,  John,  27 
Neri,  Philip  152 
Ness,  Christopher,  220 
Newman,  Dr.,  102, 107 
Nicolay,  Bishop,  72 
Newton,  John,  37 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  300 
Niebuhr,  86 
Notley,  Richard,  34 

Olshausen,  215 
Opie,  Mr.,  377 
Orme,  W.,  222 
Origen,  105 
Overbury,  231 

Parr,  Dr.,  369 

Parr,  Elnathan,  220 

Parsons,  James,  415 

Paley,  W.,  96,  302 

Paul,  St.,  91,  92,  93,  94, 95, 96, 97 

98,  101 
Pepys,  248 
Pericles,  75 
Pitt,  W.,  298 
Pilo,  M.,  297 

Playfere,  Thomas,  197, 198 
Pluche,  286 
Plutarch,  208 
Pocock,  214 
Priestly,  Dr.,  69 
Puis  ford,  John,  314 

Queen  Anne,  284 
Queen  Elizabeth,  208,  30 
Quevedo,  268 
Quintilian,  384 


45 o  Index  of  Names  JRef  erred  to. 


Raleigh,  Sir  W.,  247 

Raleigh,  Dr.,  398,  404 

Ramsay,  Dean,  283 

Rawlin,  J.,  146 

Rees,  Gabriel,  347 

Reeves,  133 

Reinhardt,  47 

Ribera,  24 

Richard  I.,  40-41 

Ridley,  Bishop,  197, 

Robertson,  F.  W.,  337 

Robarts,  G.,  29 

Robinson,  Robert,  58,  59,  61,  67, 

70,  71,  258 
Rocco,  Fra.,  153 
Rogers,  Nehemiah,  227 
Rogers,  Daniel,  220 
Romain,  62 
Ruskin,  176,  332 
Rutherford,  (S.)  91 

Sancta,  Clara,  Abraham,  273 
Saurin,  62,  426 
Savonarola,  152 
Schedel,  (Dr.),  298 
Sedgwick,  Obadiah,  227 
Secunda,  115,  117 
Segneri ,  Father,  155 
Selle,  Father,  258 
Shakespeare,  229,  332 
Shedd,  Pro.,  395,  396 
Sikes,  George,  223 
Smith,  Henry,  55,  198 
Smith,  Sidney,  Rev.,  265 
Solomon,  43 
South,  R.,  59,  227,264 
Spiridion,  72 
Spencer,  Edward,  309 
Sprague,  Edward,  24,  25 
Stanley,  Dean,  49,  99 
Strafford,  Sir  W.,  247 
Sterry,  Peter,  223 


Strickland,  W.  P.,  249 
Sterling,  23 

Stevens,  Dr.  Abel,  24,  25 
Stephen,  Dr.  Rhys,  341 
Stephenson,  G.,  199,  300,  305 
Stoughton,  John,  292 
Strachey,  Sir  E.,  78,  86 
Swift,  266 
Sydney  Edwin,  281 

Taylor,  Isaac,  78 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  59,  236,  314 
Taylor,  Mr.,  Rev.,  11 
Tavernier,  127 
Tennyson,  10,  301 
TertuUian,  105,  106 
Tenterden,  59 
Theremin,  Dr.,  395 
Thomson,  Archbishop,  300 
Toplady,  292 

Theodosius,  Elmperor,  128 
Torshell,  S.,  217 
Trapp,  John,  219,  220,  221 

Uzziah,  King,  80 

Vasari,  23 
Vane,  Sir  H.,  223 
Vincent,  St.  Paul,  91 

Ward,  Artemus,  277 
Watts,  Dr.,  284,  379,  380 
Watson,  Thomas,  227 
Watson,  Richard,  13 
Wesley,  John,  27,  91,  309 
Whately,   Archbishop,   300,  403 
Whitefield,  9,  10,  37,  38,  420, 422 
Wilberforce,  (W.),  298 
Williams,  (Edward),  259 
Wordsworth,  332 

Xavier,  Francis,  155 


INDEX  OF  BOOKS  REFERRED  TO. 

An  Apology  for  the  Pulpits,  1688,  2G1 
Athanasius'  Historical  Treatises,  107 
Augustine's  Art  of  Preaching,  45 

Confessions,  110  J 

on  the  Psalms,  219 

Burton's  Analogy  of  Divine  Wisdom,  297 
Berkeley's  (Bishop)  Minute  Philosopher,  297 
Bernard's  (R.),  Ruth,  214 
Bridge's  Ecclesiastes,  45 

(Charles,  Rev.),  Christian  Ministry,  46 

Brown's  (Bishop)  Divine  Analogy,  297 

(Dr.  John),  Horae  Subsecivae,  333 

Browning's  (Robert),  Christmas  Eve,  and  Easter  Day,  16 

Bucchius'  Golden  Conformity,  151 

Butler's  Analogy,  297 

Byron's  Childe  Harold,  336 

Boyd's  (P.  K.  H.)  Recreations  of  a  Country  Parson,  410 

Browne's  (Sir  T.),  Urn  Burial.  239 

Cater's  (Philip),  Punch  in  the  Pulpit,  283 

Cawdray's  (R.),  Treasury  of  Similes,  1600,  335 

Century  of  Eminent  Presbyterian  Ministers,  1723,  261 

Ancient  Mariner,  33 

Friend,  332 

Contemporary  Review,  391 

Everard's  (John)  Some  Gospel  Treasuries  opened,  323 

D'Aubigne's  Reformation  in  Europe,  18 

Dyer's  (George)  Memoir  of  Robert  Robinson,  68 

Faussett's  Translation  of  Vinet's  Homiletics,  47 

Ford's  Translation  from  (Segneri)  Quaresimale,  155 

Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,  124 

Goodman's  (Godf.)  Fall  of  Man,  227 

Gould's  (Baring)  Post  Mediaeval  Preachers,  138 

Grant's  (James)  Metropolitan  Pulpit,  249 

Gregory  on  Job,  219 

Haweis'  (J.W.)  Sketches  of  the  Reformation,  201 

Hitchcock  (Pro.),  On  the  Law  of  Nature,  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  302 

History  of  the  Famous  Preacher,  Friar  Gerund,  290 

Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  230 

Horace's  Art  of  Poetry,  391 

Huntingdon,  (Lady),  Life  of,  27 

Hurwitz  Hyman's  Hebrew  Tales,  331 

Jerrold's  (Douglas)  Punch's  Letters  to  his  Son,  311 

(450 


452  Index  of  Books  Referred  to. 

Lenz's(von  G.  H.)  Geshiclite  der  Christlichen  Homiletick,  151 

Latimer's  Sermons,  313 

Life  of  Antony  of  Padua,  143 

Lytton's  (Lord)  Caxtoniana,  400 

Manse  of  Mastland,  378,  415 

Maclarens's  Sermons,  382 

Maurice's  Rabanus,  De  Institutione  Clericorum,  140 

Max  MuUer,  Lectures  on  Language,  8 

Milburn's  (Henry)  Rifle,  Axe,  and  Saddle-bags,  249 

Milburn's  (Henry)  Ten  Years  of  a  Preacher's  Life,  249 

Morrison's  Life  of  St.  Bernard,  165 

More's  Catliolici,  Kenelm  Digby's  Compitum,  139,  154 

Moule's  (Horace)  Christian  Oratory,  103,  105,  106,  109 

Murray  (Rev.  J.)  Sermons  to  Asses,  289 

Neale's  Mediaeval  Preachers,  138 

Neander's  Memorials  of  Christian  Life,  139 

Light  Shining  in  Dark  Places,  139 

Ness  (Cb.),  History  and  Mystery  of  Old  and  New  Testament,  220 
North  American  Review,  No.  194,  28 
Newman's  (Dr.)  Lectures,  427 

Sermons,  102 

History  of  the  Arians,  320 

Nichol's  Library  of  Standard  Puritan  Divines,  55 

Orme's  Bibliotheca  Biblia,  222 

Owen  on  the  Hebrews,  214 

Paley's  Hor^e  Paulinse,  92 

Pluche's  History  of  the  Heavens,  286 

Potter's  Sacred  Eloquence,  429 

Presbyterian  Eloquence  Displayed,  260 

Pulpit  Sayings,  1688,  261 

Pulsford's  Quiet  Hours,  314 

Raleigh  (Dr.)  Quiet  Resting-Places,  399 

Richter's  (J.  P.)  Titan,  332 

Robinson's  (R.)  Miscellaneous  Works,  59 

Select  Works,  59 

History  of  Baptism,  62 

Ecclesiastical  Researches,  62 

Memoirs  of,  68 

Village  Sermons,  64 

Claude,  210,  248,  258 

Rogers'  (Neh.)  Fast  Friend,  227 

Figless  Figtree 

Scotch  Presbyterian  Eloquence,  249 
Sedgwick's  (Obad.)Shepherd  of  Israel,  227 

Seventeen  Arguments  Proving  the  Danger  of  Private  Persons  Pub- 
licly Preaching,  1651,  261 
Sike's  (George)  Evangelical  Essays,  223 

Ecclesiastes,  222 

Spenser's  Storehouse  of  Siniiles,  331,  334 

Things  New  and  Old,  308 

Sprague's  Annals  of  the  American  Methodist  Pulpit,  24,  28 


Index  of  Books  Referred  to,  453 

Stanley's  Eastern  Churcli,  107 

Jewish  Church,  50 

Strachey's  (Sir  E.)  Hebrew  Politics,  79,  83,  86 
Stephen's  (Dr.  Rhys)  Memoirs  of  Christmas  Evans,  341 
Sterry's  (Peter)  Appearance  of  God  to  Man,  223 

Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  the  Soul,  223 

Freedom  of  the  Will,  223  v 

Stevens'  History  of  Methodism,  24 
Strickland's  Life  of  Kruber,  31 

Peter  Cartwright,  249 

Taylor's  (Rev.  W.)  Preaching  in  Californfa,  11 

Model  Preacher,    . 

The  Preacher,  A  Poem,  1700,  201 

Theremin's  (Dr.)  Eloquence,  395 

Trapp's  (John)  Commentary  on  the  Whole  Bible,  220 

Watts  (Dr.)  Improvement  on  the  Mind,  379 

West's  Sketches  of  Wesleyan  Preachers,  13 

Whittiers  Poem's,  36  / 


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